


Carpe Noctem, Baby

by Trinket2018



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Ending, Canon Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Crime Fighting, Gen, Grieving, Kid Fic, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 13:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13705539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trinket2018/pseuds/Trinket2018
Summary: Jennifer Schanke was the last person LaCroix wanted to walk into his club.





	1. A Walk on the Night Side

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime in season 3, 1996, before that appalling series finale. DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement is intended. This is a work of fanfiction, intended only for personal enjoyment. No money has changed hands.

~0~

She was enough to make a vampire's teeth ache.

Too young to be where she was. Not pretty, perhaps, but prettiness was an over-rated commodity for the true connoisseur, and this one had more - a rare, true, timeless beauty that shone from the inside out, soft, warm, vibrant. Part of her charm was that she was totally unaware of her attractions, of the unconscious spell she could weave just by the way she stood, or walked, or gazed in open-eyed astonishment at a world perpetually new. And a word about those eyes. They were crushed velvet, warm brown and gleaming softly in the light. Her hair was the same colour, subtle, apt to cause a dilettante to pass over her for the more flashy ash blonde, redhead or raven-haired brunette. But then, there was that fire, that freshness, that life...

She hesitated on the threshold of *the Raven*, blinking at the dim light even though she had just come from the dark and dismal drizzle of a Toronto autumn night. A wariness touched those wondrous eyes, and she might have bolted back to safety, except for her two companions, forcing her forward.

One was a child her own age, a girl of no more than fifteen or sixteen, both older and younger than her friend. Older in that she had already lost that freshness, innocence and vitality her companion possessed, younger in that she probably would never have the same charm, maturity or wisdom, no matter how long she survived her weaknesses and flaws. And this second one had many. Her brassy blonde hair was neither real, nor becoming. Thick make-up aped an age and sexual sophistication she did not possess. She had the superficial prettiness her friend lacked, but it wouldn't last. Mistakes, disappointments and petty addictions would drown it. Years would wither the rest. But for now, she caught the eye. Anyone could see she was easy prey.

The third member of the trio certainly knew that. He was a man twenty five at least, ten years older, and a hundred years more jaded, drunk on his own sinful pleasures, past present and future. His eyes were slitted and cunning, his smile an insolent smirk as he watched the first girl falter, hesitate, then submit to his will with another step into *the Raven*. He was aware of the second girl's adoration and patent invitation, but treated her with amused contempt. Instead, he watched the first girl, with the hunger stirred and heightened by the challenge of a harder contest, and the sweetness of a more valuable prize.

The second girl caught that speculative gleam in the man's eye, and stiffened with jealousy. And turned to her friend. "What's the matter, Jenn? Losing your nerve?"

The first girl thought about that. There was a choice hanging in the air. To skip away and be safe, back in the darkness and the street, or to stay. Stay with her friend, bent on this crazy adventure. Stay and be a bulwark against the man she obviously disliked and mistrusted. Stay... and sample the excitement and danger that filled this den like the smoky air, the flashing coloured lights, the heavy driving music redolent with the linked pulse of blood and sex. Dark and mysterious people drifted tantalisingly through the shadows, like none she had ever encountered before.

A sudden mischievous light glittered in her eyes, and a warm smile for her friend splashed over to punch any number of other interested and attentive parties in the gut. She said, "*Carpe Noctem*, Karen."

Karen beamed. "Seize the Night, Jenn."

The man was briefly puzzled, though he was quick enough to take advantage and push both girls to the coat check. "What's this carpy notchy stuff?"

The first girl tossed him a brief resentful glance, that he should dare intrude on the private bond between she and her friend. But the second was quick to giggle and simper on his arm. "It's just something the Night Crawler said the other night, Ricky. *Carpe Noctem*, seize the night. Instead of *Carpe Diem*, seize the day, see?"

"Oh. That radio creep. You listen to that crap?"

Coldness in the first girl's eyes could freeze a man at twenty paces. "Yes."

This man only laughed, mockingly, delighted with every rebellious baring of the kitten's claws.

As he helped the girls off with their coats, passing them across to the check girl, he glanced around the crowded club, eyes ticking over the other patrons, looking for one in particular.

There, in a corner, with a drink in one hand and a full-figured and under-dressed woman on the other, was an older man whose intense black eyes had been riveted to the trio since they entered. His cold anthracite eyes drifted over the lush curves of the second girl, squeezed into a tight knit top of cherry red with a low boat neckline, and a black leather mini-skirt. But most drawn to the first girl, in a loose shirt of soft dark green buttoned up to her neck, tucked into black denims. Licking lips that burned with lustful hunger, he forgot drink and companion, his fists clenching too tight in spasm, so that the glass jiggled with a clinking of ice, and the woman blurted out a protest and tore away. But the older man met the younger's eyes, and nodded, once, solemnly. The man named Ricky smiled wider, smug, and took an even tighter hold on his charges.

~0~

LeCroix watched and listened with unabashed interest. Rather to his surprise, the two-thousand year old vampire had found running *the Raven* an interesting and amusing novelty, sitting back to observe the feast of mortal comedies and tragedies playing out before him. In time, no doubt it would pall, as almost everything did, and he would move on. But for now, he was enjoying it all immensely. At times, he even began to sense what his sometime-companion Nicolas found so compelling and seductive in it. 

Not that there was much suspense this time. Just the reiteration of a pageant older than he, but no less to be savoured this time than the first, in all its sensual, delectable detail. Seeing that trio enter his lair, he could predict every scene of the drama they were about to enact, could even foresee the end. Jail, eventually, for the man, or death. But not before he had managed to utterly devour whatever transitory gifts the second girl held and would so easily surrender. Yet the destiny of those two were of minor importance.

The centrepiece of this story would be the slow, delicious angling to tempt, hook and reel in the first rare and fragile creature, as if she were a wily trout. How would it be accomplished? She appeared bright enough to see the baited barb, and she already knew he was a threat, though she did not seem to realise that he hunted her, not her friend. Would the man wait for her to nibble on his lure, or would he grow impatient, and use a gaff? Could he hold her once she was caught? At what point would she awake to the danger, resist, and battle to save what was left of her soul? She seemed strong, perhaps a match for the man in this seemingly unequal struggle, but would that be enough to save her? None knew better than LeCroix that there was a fatal weakness in everyone, a darkness that did not really want to see the light, did not want to be saved.

The man's aim was obvious -- to overwhelm, control, enjoy, and sell her. Ultimately, he would drop both girls, sated and disgusted, having used up all that was of value in them. He would leave them with irrevocable scars, but the shreds of a crippled life to go on with. That might be enough for the second girl -- it was almost her destiny. But what of the first?

Just another kind of vampire, this mortal man. He was a regular, made his living from the women he caught in his toils, as he appeared to have caught these two. He was known as Ricky L, the small-time operator of a porno production company, and procurer of female companionship, for a price. The older man in the corner was new, but his type was certainly recognisable. Unable or unwilling to fish for himself, he had hired the younger man to be his falcon, and bring the trophy back.

For an instant, LeCroix considered descending onto their stage like a *deus ex machina*. Teaching that mortal amateur how it was really done, snatching, draining and tossing him aside. Devouring the second girl himself, since she seemed so eager to be devoured by someone. And with the first tender and delightful innocent, playing, tasting, seducing, perhaps to bring her over, or even, perhaps, letting her go, free and untouched...

He caught himself up with a shock. Really. He seemed to be catching Nicolas' foolishness, like an infection. He had no "better impulses", hadn't felt the urge to save a mortal from anything in two thousand years. The last time had been his precious Divia -- but no. No need to call up that ghost. This wasn't the same situation at all. Just a mortal headed for trouble. He had never stood in their way before. Now was a hell of a time to start. And children bored him.

There was, however, another issue here. In order to preserve this incarnation and his club -- things he still wished to do -- he had to obey certain rules and regulations. And permitting minors to partake of this very adult arena was contrary to the Ontario Liquor Licensing Act.

Intrude upon the little drama he did, therefore. 

~0~

More than two thousand years of practice give a being a certain unconscious, indefinable grace that isn't quite human. LeCroix moved across the strobe-dazzled floor of *the Raven*, navigating around cavorting dancers, stationary lovers and solitary hunters, to meet these undesirable guests. He smiled a predator's smile as he caught and held Ricky's gaze, let the man know in that ceremonial by-play, who was the stronger, more dangerous, the alpha male. Then LeCroix let his glittering vulpine eyes slide over the two children, and dwell on them. The second girl giggled and preened, identifying only interest and appreciation -- even hunger -- and liking it, thinking it gave her power. The first girl met his eyes straight, and shuddered. But she did not back away. Courage, then, along with the instinct of the rabbit, to remain still under the full intent of the carnivore's stare.

"Good evening," LeCroix spoke. "Welcome to my club. Might I see the young ladies' identification?"

Both girls flashed nervous glances to their escort.

The man shrugged, insolence in his too-clever smile, beginning to annoy LeCroix. The second girl put on a bravado and false nonchalance as she passed across a driver's licence. The blonde frizzled hair and a heavily made-up face on the tiny photo was superficially similar, but there was no way that this "Rita O'Connor" was thirty-two years old. LeCroix merely raised one eloquent eyebrow, however, held on to the case, and put out his hand for the first girl's offering.

Again, this one met his eyes, and passed another licence, but with a fatalistic demeanour, like a gambler throwing the dice, and willing to accept the consequences. The name on the card was "Myra Schanke". That stopped LeCroix for a moment. He knew that name. He didn't have to check the age (thirty-eight), or the dark, vague face on the expired licence. He searched his formidable memory, and came up with this child's real name. Jennifer Schanke. And a slow, anticipatory amusement surged up within him.

"Well, well, well. And did you honestly hope to fool me with this transparent masquerade?" he challenged. "I do not allow minors in this club. And no doubt you are all aware that carrying false identification is a criminal offence."

Jennifer Schanke sent an accusing, but not particularly surprised glare at her companions. "I told you it wouldn't work. Look, sir, we're sorry. Give us back our ID, and we'll go away. You don't want the hassle of turning us in." She put out a hand for the cards.

LeCroix's smile widened. He expected spunk from this one. She would have inherited her share of that quality from her father, along with a certain brash self-confidence, or at least, the appearance of such in the face of a potential threat. And she was showing more nerve and presence of mind then either of her companions.

Suddenly, LeCroix found himself enjoying the interlude. "I'm afraid I can't do that, my dear. I am a responsible, law-abiding citizen, after all. I'll just hang on to these until the people for whom they are meant come to redeem them."

Jennifer Schanke nodded, philosophical in the face of disaster. Then she frowned briefly, puzzled. As if something had just struck her about the quality of his voice... As if she found it familiar, in some nagging elusive way.

"Shit," spat out Ricky in disgust. "I'm getting out of here. You coming?"

"Not without the ID," the first girl declared.

"Suit yourself." He turned and made straight for the door. The O'Connor child bolted after him.

"Karen!" cried the Schanke. The blonde hesitated, slowed while Ricky reclaimed two of three coats. Karen gave one glance back toward her friend, then another after the man already at the door. Then she shrugged, and ran.

Jennifer Schanke, however, was made of sterner stuff. She stood her ground, even though a nervous glance followed her friend to the street. She tested the alternatives in her mind, her mouth working behind soft, tender young lips, a speculative, measuring look sharpening those kohl-dark eyes, as she turned to face LeCroix.

"Well?" he dared her. "Aren't you going to run? That would be the wisest course for you now. *The Raven* is a dangerous place for someone of your..." and he couldn't resist reaching out to touch the soft, warm, blushing velvet of her throat, "quality."

And, yes, he had been expecting this to surface too, as soon as he saw the name. Stubbornness thinned her lips and jutted her chin. It kept her rooted to the floor, braced and defiant. "I'm not going anywhere without my licence."

LeCroix shrugged, hard put to restrain an outright laugh. This was almost too good. "Suit yourself." 

He left her alone in the middle of the club. At least a dozen predatory males -- mortal and vampire alike -- had already fixed on her, made curious by his attentions, aroused now that he had left her unprotected. She was only dimly aware that she had become a target, but even that hint was enough to send her skittering after him, to the dark, quiet, and doubtful safety of the bar. She was bound by the licence he still held.

"What are you going to do with that?" she demanded.

He raised a mocking eyebrow. "What do you think?"

And she knew. The sudden realisation, and the inevitable consequences, all hammered in on her at once. Defeated, she boosted herself onto a stool at the end of the bar. "You're going to call the cops, aren't you?"

"I am. Yes. Of course, you can always leave."

But she wouldn't. They both knew that.

LeCroix retreated to his inner sanctum, lingering only long enough to beckon to one of his employees.

"Micloche. The child at the end of the bar. She evidently came in here looking for thrills. I want her to get more than she bargained for. Enough to keep her from coming back, but... nothing permanent. You understand?"

The dark vampire nodded, eyeing the young girl with interest. With Micloche attending to her, the others would stay back, LeCroix knew. And he had a vested interest in making sure the child remained in one unmolested piece -- for the time being. He sat at his comfortable chair, behind his personal desk, and reached for the phone.

Nicolas wasn't at home. Of course not. He would be on the job. LeCroix had that number too, though he had never used it. But it seemed that Detective Nick Knight of Metro Toronto Homicide was not at his desk. On a case, no doubt. LeCroix left a message with the anonymous minion who answered.

"Tell him, please, that his oldest friend is in a position to do him a great favour. He knows where he can find me. But tell him to hurry. There is some urgency."

LeCroix leaned back in his chair, grinning even wider.

This was going to be very, very good.

~0~

Jenny could just spit. She might have known this would turn into a major disaster. But for Karen and Ricky to run out on her like that... Well, it served her right, she supposed, for letting Karen talk her into doing anything that included that grade A jerk. But, Jeez, the flack this was going to raise...

She had been just cautious enough to check before she came, to make sure *the Raven* was no longer run by the mysterious Janette. Lord, that really would have been a nightmare. Ten to one the lady would have called direct to Nick Knight. At least now she stood a chance of dealing with a regular beat cop who might not recognise her last name. With any luck at all, Nick would never find out, and all she'd have to manage was Cooper. Although that would be messy enough. But she was sure she could talk him into covering for her. By the time her mother returned home from her conference in Vancouver, this whole incident would have blown over.

She sighed heavily, listening to the pounding rhythm of the loud rock music. It got right to the bones of the chest. Like it was driving your whole blood-stream. It was big enough, heavy enough, strong enough to hold you upright, to carry you away. The kind of music that took over, let you rest in its embrace, pounding out anxiety, thought, pain, memory.

Jenny turned to watch the dancers, on the floor, on the pedestals all around the flashing floor. On one scaffold platform there was a woman who didn't seem that much older than she, undulating like she hadn't a bone in her body, like she was an incarnation of the music itself. Jenny envied her that grace, that adult body, the admiration of the men gathered at her feet, and the sensual smile of joy limning her lips. 

Well, Jenny reasoned with a sigh, she was in for a rough time, but there was no sense getting worked up about it now. It would be a while before anyone would come. She might as well get comfortable. And, after all, this *was* *the Raven*. The hottest hot spot in town. So far beyond the pale, that people whispered its name and shuddered. Jenny did too, but with a smile beginning to emerge. It really was an adventure... She figured she ought to enjoy it. *Carpe Noctem*, baby. 

With a certain reckless abandon, therefore, she called to the bartender. "Hey! Mister? Can I have a soft-drink?"

The bartender seemed oddly young and old at the same time -- like a lot of the characters in this joint -- malevolent, dangerous and appealing, all at the same time. Weird mix. No wonder this place had such a rep. While the barman filled a glass, glaring at her with a feral snarl on his lips, she took the opportunity to study the other denizens of this strange world. She found an unsettling number of them looking back at her, and lacked the nerve to stare them down, much less offer an encouraging wink.

The young blonde woman dancing over there, now, she could handle this sort of thing. Maybe all it took was practice. She had a sweet face, a molten kind of smile, a lot like Karen, with Karen's kind of in-born sensuality. But then Jenny looked again, and saw a dark, old, haunted look of suppressed pain in the dancer's eyes. The same kind of thing she occasionally saw in Karen. A shadow that Jenny had seen in her own mirror, every night and every day for the last year. Jenny found her attention drawn, held, riveted in place as she met the dancer's eyes. Dancing while the world went by. Dancing with a hole shot through her heart. Dancing like the music was all there was. Because, just maybe, the music *was* all there was. Jenny caught her breath.

"Here. That'll be five bucks."

Jenny jumped, startled out of her own black reverie. "Five loonies?" she squealed. "For a cola? Are you kidding?"

The barman stood there, giving attitude a bad name. With a grimace, Jenny pulled open her purse.

"Allow me," offered a cold, rasping voice. An old geezer with black intense eyes -- jeez, but the guy had to be old enough to be her father -- was pressing against her side, as if it was the crowd shoving him so close to her. Iron grey hair, thinning on top, and hands like claws. One shoved a five across the counter toward the barman.

Jenny heard major alarms going off. Her dad had told her, "Guys who pay the freight for you figure you owe them something. Usually a hell of a lot more than the price of a ticket."

She swivelled on the stool to work some space between herself and him, and shoved the five back toward him, slapping her own in its place for the barman. "Thanks, but I can pay for my own drinks."

When his vice-grip of a hand fastened on her upper arm, Jenny began to be seriously alarmed. But she didn't let it show. "Never let 'em see you scared," her dad had always said.

"Get that hand off me," she told him clearly and distinctly, "before I turn it into hamburger."

"You heard the lady," insinuated a deep, silky voice. "Forget this one and get yourself someone willing." Yet another of those old-young, too-lived-in men was pressing between she and the old geezer, and suddenly the hand was off her, and the geezer was backing away. A vague, confused look came into the old guy's cold, coal-black eyes, and he just... wandered away.

Leaving her with a whole new variety of problem. He was another tall, dark, handsome, dangerous fellow -- this place seemed to clone them by the dozen -- with a smile too full of teeth and dark eyes with an unnatural glimmer in them.

"Um... Thanks."

"It was my pleasure. Do you care to dance?"

"I just got a drink, thanks."

"It'll be here when you get back," he assured her, and swept her to the floor before she knew where she was. He stared into her eyes like there was no one in the world but her. He held her firmly, but she didn't feel trapped, exactly. She felt caressed. Beckoned. Baited, like a mouse staring into the python's eyes. And the music thrummed into every bone in her skeleton.

He danced closer, his strong, insistent hands on her waist, and it was almost as if she was riding on his hips. But the danger was in his lips. They opened slightly and bent toward her neck...

She felt hot, suddenly. And then she felt terrified.

Oh Lord, what had she stepped into?

Jenny tore free and stumbled back, bumping into another couple that barely noticed. She made her way toward the bar, but her partner was right with her, close enough to touch.

She fastened on her drink as if to a life-saver buoy.

"Come dance with me again," he whispered to her ear.

"No, thanks."

"But you enjoyed it. I could tell. And so did I. Come dance with me."

"I said no."

"It would give me great pleasure. You wouldn't want to deny me pleasure, would you?"

"Sure I would. I rip wings off flies for kicks. Get lost."

"Is it the audience you don't like? There's some rooms in back. Very quiet, very private. Come dance with me."

"I'm gonna get mad in a minute."

He smiled, his glittery eyes unnerving. "Is that so? Should I be afraid?" Standing at her pointedly averted back, he reached for her neck, brushing the soft dark tresses out of the way as he lowered to lightly kiss along the jugular...

She cringed, and sent one elbow rocketing backward into his solar plexus. Something her dad taught her.

He coughed out an oath, doubled over and stepped back. He made a sound like a growl, but, strangely, he was smiling. As if he was enjoying this. As if the fight added spice. As if suddenly, the game was becoming real...

And Jenny knew he was going to come for her again.

"Micloche."

For the second time that night, another body was intruding between Jenny and a potential menace. Getting to be a bit of a pattern. This time, her rescuer was the young blonde dancer.

The man straightened and glared. "Stay out of this, Urs."

"I think you need to cool off a bit. LeCroix wants you."

That made an impression. The man glanced warily to the mirrored wall behind the bar. He might doubt the woman, but he didn't quite like to take the chance she was lying. Without another word, he retreated.

Jenny let go of a breath she didn't know she had been holding. "Thank you," she confided to the dancer. "He was getting to be a nuisance."

The dancer stared at her in some astonishment. Then blinked. "What are you doing in here?"

Jenny sighed. "I came with some friends. But they left."

"You should have left with them. You really shouldn't be here, you know. It isn't right."

"I can't leave. The owner took my ID, and I can't leave without it. I think he's called the cops on me."

The dancer gave a relieved smile. "Oh. Of course. That'll be all right, then."

"I'm Jenny," she said, smiling and offering a hand.

The dancer seemed surprised, and oddly unsure. She glanced uncertainly around, then ventured to shake. Her hand was very cold, and very dry. "I'm Urs."

"I saw you dancing. You're really good."

Again, Urs blinked. "Thank you."

"Are you professional?"

Urs wasn't sure she had interpreted that question correctly. Suspiciously, she murmured, "I beg pardon?"

"Are you a professional dancer? You know, shows and dinner theatres and movies and stuff? You'd be really good. You look like you ought to be doing that."

"I... I do?" Urs shook her head, as if she had just been dumped in deep water.

"The guy who owns this place. LeCroix, is it?"

"Yes."

"His voice. It's very distinctive... I keep thinking I know it from somewhere... Wait a minute. NC! He's the Night Crawler, isn't he?" Jenny felt a sudden thrill go through her, absolutely certain that she was right.

"Yes."

Urs didn't seem comfortable answering questions about the proprietor of *the Raven*. Half the people in here seemed to go in fear of him. Jenny had noticed that during their brief encounter earlier, when people had backed away from him, uneasy, reluctant to turn their backs to him as they sought anonymity in the shadows. Not surprising, maybe. He was a very intimidating sort of person, to meet in real life.

Over the radio waves, though, in the dark of your bedroom late at night, his smooth, deep, dark tones could be extraordinarily intimate. Karen said it was like listening to the voice of your lover. Not having a frame of reference, Jenny felt sometimes like his was the voice of her own wounded soul, speaking to her.

Her dad had tuned in to NC from time to time, when he was trying to get a handle on understanding his partner. "What does Nick see in this guy?" he would complain, shaking his head. But Jenny thought she knew. The Night Crawler spoke directly to the darkness of the soul. Of course Detective Don Schanke hadn't got the point. But his daughter had discovered her own dark corners the night her father died. And that darkness seemed to be growing, creeping, gaining ground within her every passing night.

Wait a minute. The Night Crawler. Was, according to her dad, Nick Knight's oldest friend, and, like Janette, practically his family...

Oh shit.

Jenny bolted up from her stool even as the door of *the Raven* opened, and Detective Nick Knight stepped into the carnival of sins and delight as if he were part of it. His gold hair gleamed in the light, his dark blue eyes cast over the room like a laser, and Jenny ducked it. His customary long black trench coat swirled about his lithe form like a cape of shadows.

Urs, catching sight of him, smiled and patted Jenny's shoulder. "There's your cop now. Don't worry. He'll take care of everything."

Jenny could only groan and collapse back to the stool, hiding her head in her hands. "That's what I'm afraid of."

~0~


	2. Why Fathers Go Grey

~0~

Nick glided through *the Raven*, his eyes skating over the faces, lingering only on Urs, because she smiled and waved. He returned the gesture. It was a crowd of the usual suspects. The individuals might change, but the composition never. Mostly mortals looking for thrills, or customers drawn to a market where a wide variety of pleasures and anaesthetics for the soul were offered. And, because this was *the Raven*, some of the faces out there were unnaturally pale, glimmering eyes hidden, blood-lust held in check, or transmuted into more pedestrian kinds of desire. Because all forms of desire were indulged here.

But Nick hadn't come for that. He made his way to the back, to the sound-proofed office-cum-radio studio that formed LeCroix's headquarters and sanctuary. He knocked and went in. He knew he would be expected. LeCroix would always expect him.

"Why Nicolas. So good of you to come. You're looking remarkably well, all things considered."

Nick sighed, and made himself comfortable in one of the chairs in the darkened, sound-proofed room. One wall was a smoked-glass window that offered a view of the club. From the other side, it looked like a mirrored wall. An innovation LeCroix had made when he took over the business.

Nick smiled wryly. "I had a feeling that you wouldn't be able to just tell me what it was you wanted. But, as it happens, I have a few hours to spare. How are you, LeCroix?"

The older vampire raised a surprised eyebrow, and smiled. "So you're prepared to chat? Why so polite?"

Nicolas grinned. "I thought it might put you off your guard if I acted against type -- for once. Business going well, I see. There was a review of *the Raven* in the paper last week. I cut it out for my scrapbook. If you don't watch out, old friend, you're going to find yourself 'in'."

LeCroix repressed a shudder. "Heaven forbid. But your strategy is working, Nicolas. I am off guard. I don't believe we've been so cordial with each other in centuries. But I can't help but be a little suspicious. What brings about the change?"

Nick shook his head. "Part of a deep-laid scheme, I'm afraid. Aristotle is back in town. I suppose you know that."

"Of course. And he has word of Janette."

Nick nodded. A shadow passed over his face. "Just to say she's well. And she doesn't want me to contact her."

"You could find her if you really tried. A trained detective like yourself."

Nicolas shook his head. "No. If that's her wish, I'll abide by it. I'm just glad to know she's well. I thought, if you were going to be talking to her, I might prevail upon you to convey my... love. And to assure her I won't trouble her. I think I make her uncomfortable. Maybe that's why she left."

"You do have a tendency to hold too tight to things, Nicolas. Not that I mean to criticise. I recognise the same failing in myself, from time to time. But what really unnerved her was the fact that you care so much. The passion in you isn't quite... normal. Not for our kind."

Their eyes met and held for a moment. LeCroix's were a light, icy blue, chill and penetrating. Nick's were a darker blue, more the colour of deep seas and skies on the edge between dusk and dark. Warmer, deeper, more intense.

Something new and fragile was happening between them, and neither was very sure what it was, or where it might lead. Or if they wanted it to continue. A strong psychic bond had always linked them, whether they liked it or not, the relationship running the gamut from parent-child, mentor-student, to rebellion and outright warfare. Even, for a time, lovers. Nicolas had sincerely tried to kill LeCroix on more than one occasion. And LeCroix had made it his mission to see that Nick's conversion to vampire was complete, in every way. He had done unforgivable things, designed to separate Nicolas from every emotional bond he ever formed with the mortal world. And Nick had formed many. The one thing these two had never been was... friends. 

"So," Nicolas offered. "Tell me why you called me."

LeCroix smiled and bowed. "So good of you to remind me. Yes, I did call you. It's about some annoying patrons who came in earlier this evening. A man named Ricky L, I believe, with two very young companions."

Nick straightened in his chair, a tension in him that sang like a taut guitar string. LeCroix identified the new quality -- Nick Knight, cop, was on duty. "Ricky L? Also known as Richard Larraby. Runs a pornography and prostitution ring, specialising in teenage girls."

"You know of him."

"He was a suspect in a death earlier this year. A fourteen year old school-girl found in the harbour. We had to let him go -- no hard evidence to make a case."

"That's too bad, Nicolas. He does tend to go through the children rather quickly, doesn't he? The ones he brought in this evening are no doubt intended to be his newest recruits."

"Thanks for the tip. If he's meddling with minors again, I can put him away. For a while, at least. But... why call me?"

"He brought children into my club. That violates my licence. I have a business to protect, after all. Can't have undesirables like that coming in. I confiscated their identification -- fake, of course." LeCroix casually picked up the two cases and passed them to Nick.

The O'Connor licence was on top. The name meant nothing to Nick. But the one under it...

He jerked to his feet, stiff as iron, whirling to face LeCroix, with the marks of his blood -- the shining inhuman eyes, the piercing canine teeth -- straining at his control. Odd, the older vampire reflected, how this least-typical member of their kind could manage to radiate such potent threat when aroused. Nick's voice was dark when he demanded, "Did she leave with him?"

LeCroix grinned, well satisfied with the reaction. He could spin this out, wring his young fledgling for all the drama inherent in the situation. But no. Playing with Nick in this mood, in this kind of matter, was not an altogether safe thing to do. Not unless he was prepared to declare all-out war. And, right now, the truce between them seemed more... interesting.

"No, as a matter of fact. She's at the bar." He nodded out the window.

Jennifer Schanke sat next to Urs, hunched, turned away from the large mirror, with her hands over her face, as if that would buy her a little more time before she was discovered. But Nick knew her too well. He stood frozen a moment, suppressing the vampire in him, slowing his tumultuous breathing. She was safe, unharmed, sitting there in his sight, within his reach. Nothing to worry about.

Nothing to worry about? She was sitting in the middle of *the Raven*, after coming in on the arm of a notorious pimp!

"Why fathers go grey," he muttered.

"I beg your pardon?" LeCroix demanded, his voice sharper than usual, though Nick didn't notice.

"It's something Don Schanke used to say, whenever Jenny got herself into a jam. This is why fathers go grey." He glanced back at LeCroix, half wary, half puzzled. "Thanks for... letting me know."

"I was sure you would handle all the awkwardness for me. I also trust you will prevent it happening again."

"Believe me, this is the last place I want to see Jennifer Schanke!" With a nod, and a last look meant to convey what words could not, Nick left his Master, the vampire who brought him across to the world of night and eternal bloodlust almost eight hundred years before.

~0~

Urs was sitting beside her at the bar, warding off intruders. Had it been anyone else, Nick would have been seriously alarmed, but Urs was a danger only to certain types of men, perhaps also to herself, and had never, to Nick's knowledge, broken the unwritten rules of this age. The young vampire smiled at him, and when he mouthed a thank you, she blushed and nodded, and faded away into the crowd.

Nick stood a moment, searching the girl with more than human senses. If she had been tainted in some way by one of the denizens of this gathering-place, or if Ricky L had managed to scar her already, he would be able to tell. It would be in her direct, honest, Schanke eyes. But all he found there as she faced him was defiance, and resignation, knowing all too well that now she was going to catch hell.

He shook his head and sighed. "You ready to go home?"

She stiffened, and looked up. There was a fatalistic look in her dark eyes, and a hint of resentment. For a moment, she was a carbon copy of her father, in one of his more difficult frames of mind. "I didn't know the Night Crawler owned this place. I did check to make sure it wasn't Janette."

Nick nodded. "Very clever. Shows forethought. So tell me. How does a smart girl like you walk into a place like this in the first place?"

That was the wrong thing to say. It only brought out the rebel in her. "I notice you're pretty well known in these parts. You a regular?"

"That does it." He took firm hold of her arm and hauled her off the stool, across the floor and up the stairs. She barely had the opportunity to squeal something about a coat, and he held an imperious hand out to the coat-check girl. She was smart enough, and knew him well enough, to have Jenny's coat ready so that it barely slowed him down on his way to the door.

LeCroix watched the precipitous exit. He should have enjoyed it. It certainly made a stir among the patrons. Excitement and a floor show. Those privileged would be sure to return for more, and gloat with their absent friends over what had been missed.

But something Nicolas had said struck home, like a stake to his heart. Why fathers go grey...

~0~

His own precious Divia. As young as that one, as fresh and alive, when he left her to pursue his career leading the Roman Legions in wars against northern barbarians. If the field of battle had been less arduous, less savage, he might have taken her with him. But he thought to spare her danger, and left her at home, in Rome, with her mother. How could he know what a mistake that was? The land of the Goths could hardly have been more perilous than what had found her while he was gone.

He had been born to position and wealth. He had won prestige and power, and been proud of those accomplishments, ambitious for even greater accolades. Then Divia was born. And, suddenly, everything he did, everything he won, all he aspired to, were just blankets of comfort and security to wrap his precious daughter in. All his ambition was to enhance her future, to make her safe from even his enemies. And in his vanity, he thought he had done just that.

So, in her thirteenth year, he accepted a mission to the north, though it would mean six hard months away from her side, leaving her with her mother, that stranger he called wife.

Sickness came upon her in the spring. Her mother engaged a strange physician from the east who claimed to be able to work miracles, and raise the dead. But Divia grew weaker. The physician recommended she be moved to the family villa in Pompeii. This was done. Still she grew weaker.

He knew nothing of this. No letters, no hints. Even if he had known, he would have been unable to do anything. Not while "pacification" of the barbarians was still under way.

Divia roused finally, able to leave her sick bed again. But everyone wondered at how pale she was, how cold, how odd. She ate nothing, protested that the light of day was too strong for her, and shunned it. And her wasting sickness struck some of the younger slaves, by night, killing them.

He returned from his campaign, victorious, upon Divia's fourteenth birthday, to find her drawn, pale, strangely changed. The long illness, her nursemaid said. Her father's influence, snarled her mother. But there were rumours. He never listened to rumours. Perhaps he should have listened to these...

His sweet, precious Divia, the sunlight of his mortal life, had become a vampire.

~0~

Nick had not the foggiest idea where to begin. He kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as the Cadillac convertible cruised through the night. If he had been mortal, his palms would have sweated all over the steering wheel. As it was, he couldn't seem to keep his hands still.

"Does your mother know where you were tonight?"

"Mom's in Vancouver. A business conference."

"And her driver's licence?"

"I took an expired one."

"And I suppose you think that makes it okay?"

"So I screwed up. I'm sorry."

"For God's sake, Jenny, *the Raven*? What in the world possessed you to go there? The place is dangerous!"

"Dad used to go there. You go there."

"Your dad had a gun, and so do I! Jenny... listen to me. The man you went there with. Ricky L. He's a criminal. He runs a child pornography ring, and suckers young girls just like you into prostitution, using money, drugs, seduction, coercion... anything that works. He's been convicted and done time for assault and statutory rape. He's dangerous."

"So how come he isn't in jail now?"

"You know better than that. You're a cop's daughter."

"I used to be."

"Damn it, Jenny..." Nick stopped himself short, took a deep breath, and began again. "Who was the other girl you were with tonight? The one carrying Rita O'Connor's ID?" Jenny remained stubbornly silent. "You know I'll find out. The address is on the licence. It was her idea, wasn't it? I don't think your mom is going to like the idea of you associating with kids like--"

"Don't!" Jenny burst out, a sudden savage anger erupting out of nowhere. "Okay, so you caught me. I was stupid. So you'll rat me out to Mom and I'll be grounded. But Mom's got no right to tell me who my friends should be, and neither do you!"

"The hell we don't. Your mother--"

"And who the hell are you? You used to be my dad's partner. Big deal. That doesn't give you butting-in privileges, like you were my uncle or guardian or something. You weren't even his friend. He used to complain about it all the time. You never let him get close. You were just his partner."

Nick winced. That had stung. The more so because it was true. He had never let Schanke very deep into his life. He couldn't. He told himself it had been for Donny's own good, that he was protecting him from the dangerous knowledge, if he should ever discover what Nick really was. Just having Dr. Natalie Lambert share his identity was bad enough, had brought her enough pain and hazard.

But Nick owed Don Schanke. There was a bond between partners, not unlike that between a vampire and the master who brought him over. Not quite friendship, more like family, a strange kind of trust. And Nick knew that Don would want him to look out for his family.

"Yes, I was Donny's partner. As far as I'm concerned, I still am. And whether you like it or not, Jenny, I'm going to be on your case. Stay away from Ricky L. And stay away from *the Raven*! You hear me?"

"I hear you."

Jenny subsided into sullen resentment. It served to mask the fear that was wrapping around her heart. The news about Ricky shouldn't have shocked her so much. She had already figured he was slime. But he had an actual criminal record. Porno, prostitution and rape. That was worse than Jenny had thought. And Karen thought he was in love with her.

For a brief moment, Jenny considered telling Nick about Karen. Maybe he could help... And maybe he would be like every other adult, from her mom, to the school authorities, to Karen's own sorry excuse for parents. All any of them wanted to do was write off Karen as a hopeless delinquent, and warn Jenny to stay away from her. The warnings could easily become commands, and then threats. Especially after this. And then the one person in the world who honestly cared for Karen, who was actually willing to do something -- anything -- to help her, would be shut out.

Jenny couldn't let that happen.

She knew her friend was vulnerable. Karen had so little, and needed so much. As soon as Ricky had loomed on Karen's horizon, it had already been inevitable that she should fall for his line. He was the first adult who ever paid attention to her. It didn't seem to matter to Karen that his attention was that of a starving wolf eyeing a leg of lamb. Karen was one step from making a really catastrophic mistake, and she didn't seem to care. So what, she shrugged. *Carpe Noctem*. Get what you can while you can. So what if it came with a mouthful of razor blades? So what if she got slammed? Who would give a damn?

Me, Jenny swore.

But that meant Nick Knight was going to be an awkward complication. Somehow, Jenny had to get him off her back.

"You really want to help me?" she challenged. "You put Ricky L behind bars, and leave me the hell alone."

~0~

There were lights on at the house.

"Who's home?" Nick asked grimly, almost the only thing he had said since her dare.

"Mom talked Robbie Cooper into staying with me while she's in Vancouver. Like I needed a baby-sitter or something."

"Or something," Nick grumbled with meaning. Robbie Cooper had been a homeless street kid when he and Schanke had met him on a case. Don had made a project out of helping the youth. Now Robbie was taking community college night courses, holding down a steady job with a courier company, and had become a part of the Schanke extended family.

The door opened wide even as they came up the walk. Young Robbie Cooper demanded with all the portentous threat of a Victorian parent, "Where the hell have you been? Oh, it's you, Nick. Where'd you find her? She wasn't at the O'Connor's, was she? Myra said she wasn't to go over there."

Jenny merely sighed in resignation, trudging into the house like a condemned prisoner, and Nick realised that nothing would be accomplished by adding to the voices haranguing the girl. She wasn't listening. In spite of Robbie's angry orders and threats, she merely took off her coat, and headed for her bedroom, slamming shut the door. A second later, the stereo blared with percussive rock music.

Robbie and Nick stood in silent commiseration as they stared down the hall to that shut door.

"Where was she?" Robbie asked.

"*The Raven*. The owner is a... friend. He called me."

"Shit. Myra's going to be pissed. I don't know, Nick, Jenny's a good kid and everything, but, lately..."

"It hasn't been so long since Donny died. Maybe it still troubles her."

"Maybe. But nobody talks about it, you know? It's kind of weird. Myra's being strong, and pretends it doesn't get to her, and Jenny's being strong, and pretends it doesn't get to her, and everybody's just kind of going to pieces inside. Nobody talks about it. They talk around it, and get farther and farther apart. Then Jenny got in with this Karen O'Connor. She's one of those, you know, kids from the wrong side of the tracks."

Nick smiled briefly. "Yeah, I guess we both know about kids like that, don't we?"

Robbie coloured. "Hey, man, I never got into really bad stuff, not like Karen. Her dad ran away a year ago, and her mother's an alchy. I think Karen just, you know, plans to go to hell, just to spite her parents."

Nick frowned. "And you think there's a chance she'll drag Jenny with her?"

Robbie shrugged. "Jenny's got sense, you know? But... I think she latched on to Karen because... I don't know. No fathers and troubles at home. Like they have something in common. That kind of stuff."

Nick nodded reflectively. "I'll go over to the O'Connor house right now, talk to Mrs. O'Connor. I think you can take it as read that Jenny is grounded. At least till Myra gets home. When is she due back?"

"Not till next Friday. But she calls in every night, and I've got a number."

"Call her. Tell her what's happened. But have her call me, at home. I don't think she should over-react, but... I should let her know what the situation is. Okay?"

"Okay, Nick. See ya."

~0~

As soon as Jenny got to her room, she called Karen's home. And waited anxiously for someone to answer. There was a chance Ricky would have taken her somewhere else after leaving the club. But Jenny was praying he had had enough of fun and games for one night, and taken the teenager home. The line picked up, and it was Karen's, not her mother's slurred tones.

"Karen, thank God." But relief was short-lived, and left the door open for the grudge Jenny had been nursing since Karen had walked out of the club. "What the hell were you doing, leaving me stranded like that?"

"Come on, Jenn, it was a public place. You were okay."

"The hell I was. The owner is the Night Crawler, Karen."

"No kidding! NC, really? Cool!"

"Yeah, cool. And he happens to be a friend of Nick Knight's, my dad's old partner on the police. He came and got me. Now I am so grounded, it isn't funny. I may not get loose till I'm a senior citizen."

Karen giggled.

Jenny was incensed. "Yeah, it's real funny all right. Nick's on his way to your house right now, to rat to your mom."

"So?" Karen's voice turned carefully bored and contemptuous. "She's had a solid four hours with a bottle. He's going to have fun getting through to her."

"You don't know this guy, Karen. He's a cop. He's real dedicated to serving and protecting. In fact... Karen, he told me some stuff about Ricky. He knows the guy. Rick's got a record. He's been in jail."

"I know."

"You know! Jesus, Karen! He's a God-damned pimp! He's raped girls, young ones like you and me!"

"He told me all about that, and it isn't that way at all. He's a film producer. The cops got at him for porno, but he was making art films."

"Yeah, right. Art films."

"He's a legitimate film maker, Jenn. And the rape, that wasn't real rape, just statutory. The girl was one of his stars, and she was willing. But because she was seventeen, they call it rape. Like someone our age doesn't know what she wants, can't decide for herself. Just like the cops, to be like that, think they know everything, think they can run everything. Well, I know what I'm doing, whether they think so or not. Ricky says he's going to give me a screen test! He says he can use me in his next movie."

"He can use you all right," Jenny muttered, her throat going tight and dry.

"Your cop friend was lying, Jenn."

"One thing I know for sure about Nick Knight, Karen, is that he doesn't lie. He's straight as they come. And he's a good cop. One of the best -- my dad said so. If Nick says Ricky L is a pimp, a porno king, and a rapist, that's just what he is."

"Ricky's not like that. So he's got a past. So what. He's treating me like a real person. No one else has ever done that. And he says I've got potential. Talent. This is my ticket out, Jenn! Away from my mom, away from school--" 

"Karen, for God's sake, listen. He's slime. He's a jerk. Look at the way he walked out tonight. He would never have done that if he really cared. He would have stuck it out, got the ID's back for us, so we wouldn't get into trouble. Karen, please. There's other guys out there, better ones, and other chances! You don't have to snatch at the first one that offers!"

"The hell I don't. Ricky still wants to go to *the Raven* with me. He's going to take me tomorrow night. He said you could come too, but I guess you don't want to."

"It would be pretty damned stupid of me, wouldn't it? Nick's buddy would call him the second I show my nose, and I'm busted again. And so are you."

"Oh, come on. He can't keep watch all the time, can he? He's got club business, and recording and stuff. We can take a chance. *Carpe Noctem*, baby."

Odd, how the philosophy of instant gratification made so much sense when sold by the intimate, persuasive voice of the Night Crawler over the late-night radio. It had been a balm on a lacerated soul, offering relief from the growing, almost intolerable effort it took to shut off her feelings, block up her fears. Filling up the emptiness with adventure and pleasure had seemed so much more fun than struggling to shore up a wall that was about to burst. But, right now, the idea seemed hollow and false to Jenny. And, worse, it was turning into an excuse for her friend to damn herself. 

"Karen, please, listen. I'm scared. Ricky's going to hurt you, I know it."

"So what. Who would notice? Not my dad, wherever the fuck he is. Not my mom, hiding at the bottom of a bottle. Not the school, when they've made it pretty damn clear they don't want me around. I could drop off the face of the earth, and no one would even notice."

"I would! Karen, none of those others matter. If they don't care, that's their problem. But I do. You're my friend. You're the only one I can talk to, the only one who listens to me. Please. Please. I'm begging you. Dump Ricky."

"But he's going to pick me up tomorrow--"

"Tell him to get lost. Do it for me. Please."

There was silence on the other line. Then, a reluctant, but almost happy voice answered, "Okay. But you're going to owe me one. I still want to go to *the Raven*. If we can't get Ricky to take us, it'll have to be just me and you. Right?"

The mischievous dare thrilled Jenny, but not nearly as much as the relief she felt. She had taken an awful risk, forcing Karen to choose between she and Ricky. But it had paid off. Karen was safe. And Jenny was reckless with the victory. "Sure. It's a date. I'll be busted from here to the next millennium, but what the hell. It might be worth it!"

~0~

Nick got about as much from Mrs. Rita O'Connor as her daughter predicted. When Mrs. O'Connor shouted in liquor-slurred words to get out and not bother them, Nick had little choice but to obey. But, on the steps of the ramshackle house, he could hear her strident voice, yelling at her daughter for the embarrassment caused. He came away frowning and troubled.

But it was getting on for dawn, and he had an order to pick up at the meat-packing warehouse, the other side of the city. A crate of bottles specially filled for him. No time to go looking for Mr. Richard Larraby.

Something would have to be done about this, and soon. But Nick couldn't get through to Jenny, and had no right or authority to prevent the O'Connor girl from seeing whoever she chose. It was pretty obvious he would get no support from her mother. That only left one other direction to attack.

Maybe he could talk his partner, Detective Tracy Vetter, into doing a little digging on an old unsolved murder. It would give him the excuse he needed to look into Ricky L's present operation, and shut the bastard down.

~0~

The rich, compelling voice slid into the darkness with the ease of a shadow, into the interior of the '63 Cadillac, where Nick smiled faintly, knowing that the monologue was, for the most part, meant for him.

Into a young girl's bedroom, where Karen sighed and listened, and wondered what the hell Jenny saw in this guy. But what the hell, he was cool, and it was a mark of cool to quote him next day at school.

Into another girl's sanctuary. Jenny smiled, able, now, to put a face to the voice, to picture those sensuous lips forming the words, to imagine the expression in his wolf-pale eyes.

"Tonight's meditation, my children, is dedicated to... loss. More specifically, to lost time. And nothing is more irrevocably lost than time.

"Such a curious thing, time. So infinitely variable, although we insist it is finite, measurable, marked in the sweep of the hands on a clock, the ticking of the numbers on a digital monitor. Every New Year's Eve to be adjusted to match the atomic clock of Greenwich that calculates with infinitesimal exactitude by the degradation of molecular isotopes. But every ten year old child knows that an hour spent in math class is not the same as an hour spent in a ball park, or at a movie. The five minutes we are late for work in the morning is not the same as the five minutes spent in the arms of our lover in the deep of the night.

"And yet time flies away almost unnoticed. We know we have lost it minute by minute, hour by hour, deplore that the day has only twenty-four in it, miss it when we have not dreamed enough of it away in sleep. Just a bit more time with this project, just a little more before that deadline. A count-down to the next weekend. And in the large it rushes by, hurtles by, until the landmarks loom in our headlights and we slam into them. Birth. Graduation. Marriage. Age thirty. Birth of our children. Age forty. Their graduation, marriage. Age fifty. Birth of grand children... And then the deaths of parents, of friends, spouses, siblings, children... ourselves."

Karen O'Connor groaned and muttered, "Yech, he's getting real morbid tonight." She turned out her light, and the radio, and rolled over to sleep. 

"A new millennium has overtaken us. Another one. How many times have you seen Haley's Comet? How much have you done with the time you have been given? And how much do you intend to do with what you have left? Because very few of us have forever. And not even an immortal can afford to waste it.

"So soon it flies by. So soon. Like a flood that carries all away. Children, friends, parents, all gone in a blink. We clutch what we can, but we are not strong enough to hold on forever. And even the most cherished slips away, and disappears down the tide."

Nick drove into his warehouse home, parked, and lingered, the engine off but the battery engaged, to listen to his Master. He was almost sure he knew where this one was going. Nick was only too well aware what LeCroix thought of his attempts to live as a mortal, among mortals. Of the cost as one by one, they died, inevitably outdistanced by his immortal life-line.

"But enough about me. I see we have listeners with comments. Let's hear from a few of them."

Nick grinned, shook his head, and shut down, carrying his crate up to his apartment. He unpacked it, one bottle of steer's blood going straight to the refrigerator, the others into storage. He uncorked an already-chilled bottle, and turned on the stereo. And heard...

"Hi, NC. I'm a regular listener," said the young voice. "So I kind of know where you're going with the time passing thing. You're going to say that we should fill it up with experience. I know that you talk a lot about seizing experience, *Carpe Noctem* and all that. But... That can't be all there is."

"According to the Peggy Lee song, that is exactly all there is. Just the little adventures we use to fill up our time."

"Yes, but... what do you do with the second week?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Nick stopped cold. He didn't like the edge in the Night Crawler's voice. It meant trouble. And Nick and LeCroix both knew who this particular caller was.

"I mean, doesn't it get boring, just grabbing at things for the sake of grabbing them? What if you run out? What if the stuff you pick up is just cheap costume junk that isn't worth anything? What if you keep grabbing the same thing that already bored you before? What if you grab something dangerous? You can loose an arm that way. Put out an eye. Then your time will get real spoiled, won't it? Present and future."

"There is risk in life. And whether you take it or not, time still runs forward."

"Well, yes, it does. No matter what you do, it's going to run away. But the choice isn't just use it or don't use it. It's use it right, use it wrong, or don't use it. And I think the worst waste of all is to use it wrong. That's worse than not using it at all. Don't you think?"

"That rather depends on your definition of right and wrong, doesn't it? And if you intend to argue that point, we're going to run out of time altogether. Goodnight, listener. Yes, next listener. You're on the air."

He hung up on me! Jenny's jaw dropped in astonishment. The Night Crawler had actually hung up on her!

Why?

~0~

Damn that brat!

LeCroix paced his studio as daylight seeped into the outside world. He growled at the shadows. Damn that abominable child. He ought to have guessed that a daughter of Detective Schanke's was bound to be trouble. He had only met her father once, when the detective had suddenly taken it into his head to suspect his partner of being more than just a little eccentric. LeCroix had managed to convince Schanke that his notions were delusional, but it had been a very near thing. And the only reasonable course of action if he had failed would have been to kill the good detective. Not that Nicolas would have stood still for that. Nicolas had a lamentable attachment to his mortal associates, and a dangerous inclination to side with them against his own kind. It could have got very messy indeed.

But damn that little girl. Arguing with him. Daring to challenge him that way. Actually listening to him! Why wasn't she asleep? Children had no business being up so late, listening to his broadcasts!

To tell the truth, LeCroix rarely thought about his listeners as a group. He usually pictured only Nicolas, out there somewhere, cruising the nightmare streets of Toronto on his rounds, dwelling on the words coming over the car radio. Most of LeCroix's little meditations were designed as needles to prick at Nicolas one way or another. That anyone else was out there absorbing the same message, was a little offensive. Like there had been eavesdroppers. And for little children like that one to be grading him on his logic was more than enough.

The abominable brat didn't even have the sense to be afraid of him. Like Divia, she seemed immune to the fear he could excite in any other being, mortal or immortal... 

~0~

The eruptions had been going on for days, along with the growing plume of thick smoke rising over Vesuvius. There were those who cried out predictions of danger and death. There were always such. Lucius ignored them. But... Well, if it had been just himself, he wouldn't have bothered. But there was Divia to consider. He decided it wouldn't hurt to take the household back to Rome for a few days.

But Divia became hysterical about such a journey. It would take days. And her mother insisted they not jeopardise her precarious health.

Lucius was quite capable of terrorising his wife into anything. Quite enjoyed it, actually. But then Divia came to him, and threw a tantrum.

He was unprepared for such a display from her. He had never seen her in such a savage temper. For a moment, he actually thought her eyes glowed... But it may have been the wine he had drunk. In any case, he backed down, unable to deny her anything.

Those families who remained in Pompeii gave huge parties in defiance of the mountain. Lucius held one of the grandest. And as he lay drunk and barely conscious in the atrium of the house, long after the guests had gone or fell into drunken stupor, Divia came to him.

She murmured offers of power and eternity in his ear. He made a reflex answer to her, never one to turn down power...

And Divia, his sweet, innocent daughter, his precious child, the one thing in his life that gave him pure and unsullied joy...

...bit into his neck, hanging on while she sucked him dry, ignoring his feeble struggles, unaccountably, terrifyingly stronger than he. And then, as he lay on the very edge of death, she sent him over. And with his own knife, borrowed from his belt, she slashed her thin, frail wrist, and held it to his mouth. With her own blood, his own blood, she brought him across to eternal night and eternal hungers.

His daughter became his Master.

~0~


	3. Into the Fire

~0~

Nick agonised until after dawn, then succumbed to an overwhelming impulse. He put in a call to his partner, Detective Tracy Vetter, at her home. She was working an overlapping shift with him this week, two to ten, while he went nine (pm) to five (am). And she was a morning person. 

"Hi, Nick. What's up?"

"I think I may have a fresh lead in an unsolved murder from a year ago, one Donny Schanke and I were assigned to. The Cramer case. Fourteen-year-old girl found in the Harbour."

"I remember hearing about that. What have you got?"

"The principal suspect was Richard Larraby, a pimp and porno producer in Parkdale, specialised in very young merchandise. We could never get anything to stick, and he left town. Now it seems he's back, and setting up his old shop. I think it might be worth another look. At the least, we can get him for pandering, child pornography, maybe something more substantial, get him off the street before he hurts some other kid. What do you think?"

"Sounds good to me. I'll see if I can track him down. By the time you come in, I should at least have an address."

"Good. Thanks, Trace. Just so you know... This one is personal. One of the kids he's been seen with is... a friend. I don't want anything to happen to her."

"Hey, partner, you don't have to explain. I trust your judgement. I'll get on it this afternoon. Sleep tight, now."

~0~

Jenny slept in late Saturday. It was almost noon before she roused to find the sun shining in her window. And she had to admit, she felt like hell. Staying up all night to listen to NC, then getting up for school, was cutting into her sleep time, and the sluggish feeling that overtook her bit by bit through the week came crashing in on the weekends.

The first thing she did was put in a call to the O'Connor house. No answer. Not surprising. Mrs. O'Connor usually didn't become conscious at all on weekends, and Karen was an even later sleeper than she was. She'd try again later.

It wasn't that Jenny thought Karen had lied to her when she promised not to see Ricky again... Just that Karen sometimes forgot the important things, got carried away in the moment. The moment always seemed like more fun than the past, or the future. Jenny often felt that way herself, but she was beginning to understand how dangerous that kind of attitude was. Too much got missed. But Jenny was sure that all it would take was another pep talk to remind Karen, and push her into doing the right thing, the safe thing. Maybe it would be best if Jenny was there when Karen called to say "Get lost". For the moral support.

It was funny, Jenny mused, smiling to herself over a bowl of Cheerios, how good she felt. Sure, she was going to catch hell from her mom, but that paled next to the fact that she was helping another human being, really helping, for the first time in her life. And, also for the first time, Jenny caught the faintest hint of what police work had meant to her dad.

She grinned to herself over that. Another detective Schanke in the family might not be a bad thing...

She was at the door when Cooper intercepted her.

"Hey! Where the hell you think you're going?"

"Out," she tossed over her shoulder.

"No way, man. You're grounded."

"It's one o'clock in the afternoon, Coop."

"Yeah, and you're grounded. Confined to quarters. House arrest. Your mom said."

"I've got stuff to do! Errands to run."

"Yeah, right. Forget 'em. Or tell me, and I'll take care of 'em. That's the best I can do."

Jenny faced him squarely, arms crossed on her chest, and smiled sweetly. "Okay, then. I'm out of sanitary napkins, and I'm due. You want to know the brand mom and I use?"

One more lie. But it was in a good cause... Jeez, it was so easy to fake guys out, sometimes. Weak stomachs. Cooper turned four shades of red, then tried to tough it out.

"Okay. You get to go for supplies. But you be back here by two o'clock!"

"Sure, warden," she agreed flippantly, picking up her jacket and waltzing out the door. With any luck, she'd help Karen make her call, and be back in plenty of time.

~0~

Karen woke into a blurry daze at the drilling ring of the phone. She buried her head in the pillow, struggling to ignore it, until she had to admit defeat. But it cut out even as she fumbled for the receiver by her bed. Then she swore, long and comprehensively. But she was up now.

She thought it was only fair to call Ricky to tell him it was over. Writing him off actually didn't cost her much.

Truthfully, Karen knew exactly what Ricky L was, and what his promises were worth. He reminded her too much of her dad. But he was handsome, exciting, and it had been easy to sink herself in the dream of escape, of fame and fortune. She confessed it only to herself, but he scared her as much as excited her. And there was something about the way he looked at Jenny, kept nudging Karen to invite her along on their trysts... That had never seemed right. Like he was angling for Jenny, not her. It gave her the uneasy feeling that she was being made the bait in a trap for her best friend...

So when Jenny had begged her to give him up, she had been more than willing. It felt good to know someone cared enough to fight for her. No one else ever had.

So she dialled his number with a cheerful little hum.

"Ricky? This is Karen. I'm just calling to say goodbye. We're through."

The confident male voice on the other end chuckled. "Funny, Karen. I'll pick you up at eight."

"No, you won't. It's over. I'm not seeing you again."

"It's not that funny, kid."

"I'm not joking. I'm serious. So long."

"Karen! Wait. Don't hang up. Look, can't we talk about this? What brought this on?"

"Nothing. I just don't want to play anymore."

"What do you mean, play? What about our plans? Your career? The screen test, the movie--"

"That's all just lies. I know that."

"Lies? You think I've been lying to you? Karen, you're wrong. Look, I've arranged for us to meet a producer, tonight, at *the Raven*. He does that TV show -- about the Werewolf doctor, you know the one? He's looking for someone to do a bit spot in an episode coming up. But it's just a trial for a much bigger part, maybe a continuing bit, and I talked him into giving you a try. He wants someone young, fresh, a new face, someone who hasn't had a lot of experience."

Karen frowned into the receiver. "Is this for real?"

"Of course it is! For God's sake, Karen, this is your big chance! You want to ditch me, what we might have together, fine. But this is your career we're talking about. I can always find another girl. But I want it to be you. What do you say?"

Karen fingered the receiver. If it was real... Could she really take the chance that it was a lie? What if she missed this golden opportunity, and it went to someone else? Seize the Night, Karen! *Carpe Noctem*, baby.

"Okay. I'll come. But this better be the real deal, Ricky. Or you're history."

"It's as real as they come, sweetie. Oh. What about your little friend? What's her name. I've got a part for her too, if she wants it."

Karen went a little colder. There was something just a little too casual in his tone. "Why do you always ask if Jenn can come along with us? You know, Ricky, if I were a jealous person, I might think you want her more than you want me. That maybe you're just using me to get at her."

"That's crazy, baby. I just thought, you know, you'd want to do your friend a favour."

"I don't think she'll play. She doesn't like you very much. She got into a lot of trouble last night, and she blames you for all of it. The cops picked her up, and they told her you were a criminal, been in jail, a pimp, a porno guy, and a rapist. I stuck up for you, Ricky. Was I wrong?"

"I told you about all that, babe."

"Yeah, I know. So help me, Ricky, if you're lying to me about this screen test tonight--"

"I'm not lying, baby. Wear something... attractive. That black leather number would do just fine."

"That's my mother's."

"So? You think she'll notice if you borrow it again?"

Karen giggled. And that decided her. "Right. See you tonight at eight. But I'll meet you outside *the Raven*. They know me there now, and they might call the cops again."

~0~

Ricky L hung up, and sighed in relief. That had been close. And it still wasn't good. The Schanke girl seemed to be slipping out of his net, just when he was sure he had her. Of course, there was still a way to haul her in. He had found the lures to use on both these ripe and ready trout, the first night he had met them. It was his special talent, what made him so successful in his chosen profession. With Karen, the key was the fact that she wanted to go to hell. She would do anything, become anything, to spite her mother and father, even though the odds were neither would ever notice. And pretty Jennifer? Loyalty. She would stand by her friend no matter what. Walk into hell with her, if it came to that. Ricky aimed to see that it did.

He dialled Walter Turner's number. "It's all set for tonight. I can deliver the O'Connor girl for certain, but the Schanke girl may take a while longer."

The malevolent raspy voice growled, "The O'Connor child is nothing. It's Schanke I want. And I want badly."

"I understand that. But I've explained the situation. This has to be done carefully, or we'll all land in jail. First, we make sure O'Connor is ours. She's our stepping-stone to Schanke. Karen's just about to the point where she'll do anything for me, for the asking. Tonight we push her over the edge. Then, when the moment is right, I'll ask her to bring her friend along. And Schanke will come, because she'll think she's going to save O'Connor from my evil clutches. I'll soften her up for you. Then you have your shot."

"Yes. My shot."

"Turner, don't mess it up. You have to play her. Court her. Seduce her. Get her so tied up in guilt, sin, fear and pleasure, that she won't even think of talking afterward. Just the way I plan to reel in O'Connor tonight. Unless you want to go back to jail?"

"No thank you. I bow to your superior expertise."

"Walter... You will be... careful, won't you? You won't get carried away. Do something... fatal to the kid?"

"Certainly not. The prison psychiatrist decreed me sane, remember? If the police detective who put me behind bars was still alive, I wouldn't need to go after his child. I no longer have such needs. But this is something quite different. This is revenge. And that I need very badly."

"Okay, just so you know. I don't want to have to explain any awkward bodies. I'll meet you at *the Raven*, at eight." 

Ricky no sooner hung up, than the buzzer on the street door of the warehouse went off. He was the only tenant, leasing the building for his various operations, all of which required a measure of privacy. This section of Queen Street West, a particularly bleak waste-land of boarded-up warehouses and broken windows, gave him that. A third-storey room was his office, while the ground and second floor had been converted into stage sets -- little overdone oases of satin curtains and opulent-looking fake furniture under industrial camera lights, amid dusty expanses of bare boards and clutter. There were no movies in production at the moment -- even porno takes capital, and Ricky wouldn't have any of that until his contract with Turner was complete. He wasn't expecting any visitors, but it might be potential investors. He went down to answer the street door.

"Mr. Richard Larraby?" demanded the attractive blonde in the severe suit and no-nonsense look.

"Jesus," he swore. "You're a cop, right?"

Detective Vetter showed her badge. "I'd like to ask you some questions, if I might--"

"Well you might not. I'm a busy man. It's Saturday for Christ's sake. We're closed on the weekends. And I don't have time to talk to cops on a fishing expedition."

"How do you know I'm fishing?"

"Because I haven't done anything. And you're metro homicide, and the only death that could bring you to me would be the Cramer kid, who committed suicide over a year ago. Yeah, you're fishing. And I haven't got the time. Get lost."

"I can be back here with a warrant in an hour."

"Good. Do it. But I leave the office early on Saturdays."

Tracy's blue eyes were hard and sharp as cut crystal. "Mr. Larraby, I would advise you to be very careful of the kind of activities you engage in. Prostitution, and child pornography, are both illegal. Don't make the mistake of thinking there's even the slightest chance that you could re-start your old businesses and we won't know about it. All we need is an excuse. Please, Mr. Larraby, just give us one."

With that soft threat, Detective Vetter left him to watch her return to her car, and drive away.

This was getting very dangerous. He had known that going after a cop's daughter would be hazardous, but he had something of a grudge against Schanke himself, and said cop had been dead for almost a year. He hadn't expected the man's old buddies would still be watching so close. Seems he was wrong.

This was shaping up to be a hell of a mess, nearly as bad as the Cramer thing. But that had been an accident. The kid had panicked, gone hysterical, and Turner had used a little too much force to get her to keep quiet. That had been a near thing. But the dead grey waters of the harbour had helped him out, washing the body clean of any evidence that might have convicted either of them. The point being, he didn't want to chance another awkward corpse or two threatening his freedom.

But crossing Turner, his one-time cell-mate, would be just as dangerous, in its way.

~0~

Jenny didn't start to worry until six o'clock. She had spent the afternoon chasing down one favoured haunt after another, trying to track Karen down, and missing her by inches, at the mall, at her hairdresser, and the dress shops she favoured. Jenny called friends, to hear that none of them had anything special planned for that night, knew of no parties, hadn't talked to Karen. Someone suggested Karen had headed down to Ontario Place for the rock concert. Would Karen go without her? But it was a place to look, and Jenny was running out of ideas. She had reluctantly promised Cooper that she would be back by two -- she was supposed to be grounded, after all -- but she had already broken her word. She winced at the thought. But this was important. She had to find Karen.

For over an hour, she wandered around the Molson Amphitheatre, the big outdoor venue of Ontario Place, hoping to find one familiar face in that massive crowd. Then she checked out the restaurants, bars and walks, and finally admitted to herself around ten o'clock, that she had only one more place left to try.

But, God, she didn't want to return to *the Raven*. It was a guaranteed Go to Jail card.

~0~

"Javier," Urs mused as she leaned on the bar next to her oldest friend, "what do you think of my dancing?"

Javier Vachon replied, "I love your dancing. I've always been a fan."

"No, I mean really. Do you think I'm... good?"

Javier was old enough -- at three hundred years -- to know when trouble was looming. And wary enough to side-step. "You want to tell me what this is about?"

Urs frowned, and whirled, dull eyes surveying the raucous club. "I was thinking that maybe I might try to get a job. You know, as a professional dancer."

Vachon blinked, caught an incipient chuckle before it had a chance to cut his throat for him. "Um... Urs, are you talking about... a mortal job? Or just wringing a pay check from LeCroix? Not that I'd recommend either..."

He thought he had been careful, but not careful enough. Urs turned a resentful scowl on him. "You don't think I'm good enough. You don't think I could cut it."

"It's not a question of how good you are, Urs. It's a question of what you are. There's day practices, afternoon auditions, matinee performances... There's some things we just can't handle. If you need money--"

"It isn't about money," she grumbled, turning and staring into the mirrored back of the bar, into her own discontented face. "Nick doesn't seem to have any problems holding down mortal jobs. He's had a lot of them."

Vachon was seriously alarmed now. He was the one who had brought Urs across, a century and a half ago, and he had thought he was doing her a favour. He wasn't the Master type, too elusive for that, but he felt protective of Urs, as close to her as he had ever been to anyone, and he felt more of a sense of responsibility toward her than he felt to anyone else. So he was a little hotter in his reply than he might otherwise have been.

"And playing at mortal has got him into a lot of hot water with the Community! He takes risks nobody else takes. He's almost been uncovered a dozen times, almost been killed another dozen. The Enforcers have been down his back on a couple of instances, and that's a couple too many for me! Plus he's got five hundred years on me, almost seven hundred on you."

Urs gave this speech a stony reception.

More gently, Vachon went on, "Come on, Urs. This isn't about money, or joining the labour force. What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I just feel... Restless."

"I thought you liked this place. Tired of it already?"

"It's not the place I'm tired of, Javier. Maybe it's me... Even if I move on, I'll still be me. I just... feel empty, somehow. Like I'm just filling in time."

Vachon tried to think of a response to that, when Urs caught sight of a new arrival at the street door, and stiffened. Then she smiled, and waved.

Javier followed that look, and was stunned to silence for the second time in half an hour. Urs was waving to a mortal girl who couldn't be more than fifteen years old.

"Friend of yours?" he demanded in thick sarcasm.

"No," Urs replied absently, letting a troubled frown settle over her face. "She's a friend of Nick's. I'd better go."

Before Vachon could stop her, Urs had forged her way into the crowd, on an intercept course with Jenny Schanke.

It was already eleven, and Jenny had been a little rattled by a somewhat persistent street person who had followed her from the subway. He probably only wanted her change... Probably. Seeing Urs, a friendly, reassuring, safe face, had given her some confidence back. But Urs was giving her an angry, forbidding scowl when they met.

"What are you doing back here?" she demanded.

Jenny swallowed. "I came to look for my friend. Karen O'Connor. You know, the girl I was with last night?"

Urs didn't seem to hear. "I thought we made it clear last night. You aren't welcome here. You shouldn't have come. Didn't Nick tell you to stay away?"

"Sure. Everyone did. You, Nick, NC--"

Urs blinked, momentarily thrown off base. "NC?"

"Yeah. The Night Crawler. Look, Urs, I'm only here to find Karen. Tell me what I want to know, and I'll go quietly, like I was never here. Promise. Has Karen been in tonight? Did you see her? Or the man we came with last night, Ricky L?"

Jenny felt his presence before she saw him, in the pricking of all the small, soft hairs on the back of her neck. And when she whirled around, LeCroix was standing so close, she should have been able to smell his cologne. But she smelled nothing on him at all. Not even sweat. As if he were a ghost, not fully real. But his eyes were real enough. As pale as a wolf's eyes, and as penetrating. His glare was full of malevolent threat.

If he was deliberately trying to frighten her, he was going about it in just the right way.

"I thought I made myself clear last night," he murmured softly.

Jenny took a steadying breath. "I'm looking for my friend. Did she come in earlier?"

"You will leave this club. Now. You will not come back."

The compelling quality in his voice, in his eyes, deepened. Jenny actually felt her body move toward the door, without her conscious decision.

No. Karen.

It was unexpectedly hard to stop, turn, and face him again. And when she did, he grimaced, and sighed.

"I have not seen your friend tonight. If I had, I would have thrown her out, too."

"Have you been here all night? She might have come in earlier. She might come later. Maybe I'll just hang here and wait till--"

An irresistibly strong grip fastened on her upper arm, and she felt herself being dragged inexorably toward the door. Jenny was barely aware of Urs trailing close.

"LeCroix," Urs almost yelped, "maybe you should call Nick, and let him handle this. LeCroix--"

The Night Crawler hesitated just long enough to give Urs a disgusted look. "There is no need for you to dither in this way, Urs. I'm not going to do anything permanent to the little brat."

She gave him an uncertain look, not sure if she believed him. "Nick isn't going to like this."

LeCroix was beginning to get angry. It showed patently in his cold, cold face, and a shadow solidified at Urs' shoulder. Vachon interfered in the affairs of others so seldom, it was always a shock when he contravened his own rules.

"She's right, LeCroix. Why don't you let us entertain the young lady, until Nick comes. Okay?"

"This is ridiculous," LeCroix stated softly. There was no need for him to point out that two thousand years gave him more than enough power to deal with both of these fledglings without even working up a sweat. But they were not moved. And there was a light in Urs' eye that he had seen long ago... In his wife. When their daughter had been at risk...

LeCroix shook his head to clear it of that image. He didn't know what had come over him, lately, to dwell so much on that long-dead chapter of his mortal life. It was dealing with children, no doubt. This one was becoming more than just a pest.

He regarded her coldly. "You and I," he told her, "need to talk. Tell these two that you are in no danger from me."

Jenny smiled. "It's okay, Urs. Really. Oh, and don't call Nick, please? I need more time to find Karen. Please."

Only Vachon's hand on her shoulder kept Urs from following the ancient vampire and the mortal child to the office, and she didn't like it. "This is serious trouble, Javier."

"Yes, but it's between LeCroix and Knight. Believe me, you don't want to get in the middle of those two."

"The way that kid is?"

~0~

LeCroix pushed Jenny forcibly into the leather guest chair, then went to the side-board to pour himself a goblet of something red and thick from a dark wine bottle. He took a fortifying sip, then sat on his desk, regarding his uninvited guest.

"All right. I'm listening."

Jenny blinked. "To what? Oh. Why I came? I told you. It's Karen. I can't find her, and I think she might have come here tonight. I hope on her own, but... maybe she was with Ricky L. I need to find her, M. LeCroix. It's important. I think she might be in terrible trouble."

"What makes you think that."

"Nick told me about Ricky, the man who brought us here last night. He's made a career of using people like Karen and me. Young girls, you know, for prostitution and porno films. Karen's smart, and she wouldn't get involved in that sort of thing if she knew what she was into, but he told her he's going to make her an actress, give her a screen test, and it's making her blind. She's in way over her head."

LeCroix found his attention dwelling rather too intimately on the pale, tender flesh of the child's throat, and dragged his eyes away, looking instead out the darkened window on the club, and noting that Urs was looking back in, as if she could see through the mirrored glaze.

"Don't you think you are too? In way over your head?"

"Maybe," Jenny conceded. "I talked to Karen last night. I got her to promise not to see Ricky L again."

"Then you have nothing to worry about, do you."

"Well, no, if she went through with it. If she really dumped him. But I've been trying to find her all day, and I think she's been avoiding me. That can only mean she's seeing him tonight, and doesn't want me to know. I don't think she's ever been alone with him. I've always been there -- safety in numbers. But tonight... I'm scared for her. If I can just find her, talk to her..."

"And this is important to you."

"Yes."

LeCroix watched her, wondering if he could ever, ever, have been so young. So full of life, energy, passion. Somehow, passion was an element he had lost even before he became immortal, except for rare instances -- feeding upon an especially exquisite victim, or the moments when he had brought across one of his own... Janette, and Nicolas. Who, come to think of it, had possessed the same passion, once upon a time. Nicolas still burned with mission, in that damned job of his.

Odd. LeCroix had made it a point of his own personal honour to only bring across the mature, jaded, embittered, those who had lived and soured on life, and held few or no illusions about it. He thought it was because the young and innocent bored him. But perhaps it was more. Perhaps he stayed as far as he could from those who might remind him of Divia... And yet, his chosen fledglings had burned with her youthful inner fire, had betrayed, after the fact, that they possessed shreds of her innocence, after all. It was almost as if he had sensed this in them from the beginning, been drawn to it, unable to let it go, even as he fought to raze it from their natures.

Could he be that much of a fool?

LeCroix shook his head to clear it of these shadows, and return to the matter at hand.

There was no way he was going to be able to plant the appropriate suggestion in the child's head until he had undermined her passion, shaken her up, put doubts in her mind, dug away the foundations beneath her sense of mission.

"Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that your friend Karen knows exactly what she's doing?"

"No. She doesn't know what Ricky's like--"

"But you told her. Didn't she believe you?"

"Well, yes, but--"

"Then she knows what she's getting into. There are some people who like to play with fire. Your friend Karen is one."

"Not this kind of fire!"

"Yes, my poor innocent. Precisely this kind of fire. And saving someone like your friend Karen from what is quite obviously her manifest destiny, is a waste of time."

She went very still, her velvet eyes fastened on him widening even as her face stiffened.

He lifted one eloquent eyebrow. LeCroix could detect the faintest shiver in her hands, and was encouraged to continue. "You are wasting your time, Ms Schanke. Believe me, even if you manage to intercede tonight, and tomorrow night, there will be other occasions. That girl will find her own level one of these days. You can only delay the inevitable. So why don't you just give up and go home." He leant on that last line, confident that this time he would burrow under her will and succeed.

But in the next instant, he realised how seriously he had miscalculated. He seemed to have unleashed a whirlwind, no less dangerous for being wrapped in such an unprepossessing package.

"You son of a bitch," Jenny whispered, lifting slowly out of the chair to stand fore-square against him. "You don't know a damned thing about Karen. She's got her problems, like all of us, but that's no reason to throw her away. I thought you'd understand! But you're just like all the rest. You look at the outside and you write her off. Well, you and her parents and the school and the rest of the world can go to hell! She's never been given a chance, not one, by anyone else, and she deserves one. If no one else will give it to her, I will!"

Jenny whirled and started for the door. With a whoosh, LeCroix was somehow in her way.

"No. You will stay here until Nicolas comes to get you."

"The hell I will. Get out of my way. I've got places to go, people to see."

But LeCroix remained fixed in place, his face forbidding and cold. Jenny blinked at him a moment, close to losing herself in the icy reflections of his eyes...

All surface, no depth to them at all.

With a sudden shudder, Jenny shook herself free.

"I thought you were someone else," she murmured, feeling a rending in her heart, and a terrible sadness, as if she were losing a trusted friend. "On the radio, as the Night Crawler, you seem to understand, to know what it's like to be alone, to drown in the darkness inside. I thought you understood. And I thought you were telling the truth. But you're just as full of crap as everyone else -- you just know how to wrap it up a little better, that's all. That *Carpe Noctem* shit. That's you to a 'T', isn't it? Some pathetic old guy who uses that tag as an excuse to use and destroy stuff, because he doesn't have any real feelings, any real desires, can't give or make or create anything. You paper over the holes without doing anything to solve the real problem -- that reality itself sucks. Even the darkness is shit, isn't it? You're just... hollow inside. But maybe you've bought into your own lies. Is that it? You can't stand to face yourself as you are, so you construct this elaborate lie to tell yourself you're enjoying what you've got. Even though it's nothing. Maybe you can't even tell yourself what's real and what isn't."

Jenny stopped, panting to get her breath back, her eyes narrowing. "Well, I know. Karen's real. And she's worth it. You're the one who isn't worth a damn." 

When she stepped around LeCroix and reached for the door, he found himself paralysed, unable to stop her. Unable to bear that harsh voice, those searing eyes, for even an instant longer.

And when he was able to look aside, it was to see that abominable brat walking boldly up to Micloche, to demand information no one else in their right mind would have given her. He could read it on her rigid, pouting, delectable lips, "Where can I find Ricky L?"

Urs and Vachon watched from the opposite end of the bar. Vachon wisely counselled they stay out of it, but LeCroix didn't need to see the look on the younger vampire's face to know that was never an option. Urs was already committed.

He had been born to a practical, civilised empire. He had always prided himself on one thing -- he had never deceived himself. He laughed at those who prostrated themselves before plaster idols, who bound themselves to ludicrous ideals, and paid hypocritical lip service to man-made laws and concepts. Not him. Not a general of the Pax Romana. Not a vampire with over two thousand years experience. Surely he, of all beings upon the face of the Earth, knew the hard lessons of survival and existence, knew what were the true laws of that strumpet, Nature, and what were the artificial constructs of woolly-thinking mortals who wanted to believe in some Greater Good.

And then a fifteen-year-old child had ripped through him with a fury that tore him to the bone, with a lesson in deception. And he found himself almost afraid, for the first time in two millennia, to look into himself, to see if she could, just possibly, be right.

One thing he promised himself even as he stared out at her back, making for the door. If she ever came in his presence again, he would make her very, very sorry.

~0~

Vachon made one last attempt. "Urs! Stay out of it!"

She whirled on him with fury in her eyes, just this side of turning loose the vampire in her. "She is walking into danger, and she has no one to help her. You call Nick, tell him she's going to Ricky L's place. It's down in Parkdale. I'm going to follow her, just to make sure she doesn't get into trouble."

Vachon sighed. "Look. You feel this way about it, you call Knight, and I'll baby-sit the kid. Okay?"

"No. This is for me to do. Call, Javier."

And then Urs was heading for the coat check, and then the door. Vachon sighed again. Oh well. It wouldn't hurt to chalk up a few brownie points with the vampire cop. Vachon got the distinct impression that Knight didn't approve of him, discounted him as a lightweight, a slacker. Vachon had never been unduly concerned with anyone else's opinion, until recently. These days, he was finding it more and more important to him that certain people -- like Knight, his attractive partner Tracy, and even Urs -- did think well of him.

It was really cutting into his life-style.

The first phone call was to Division 110, where Knight worked. He wasn't there. Then he tried Tracy's desk. Still nothing. Oh sure, this was Tracy's early shift. She'd be at home. He dialled her number from the top of his head. But it was on the answering machine.

"Hey, Tracy. I've got a message for your partner. Tell him his little friend Jenny is about to walk into some heavy stuff. Give me a call. I'm at *the Raven*."

~0~


	4. The Bane of the World

~0~

Urs hovered over the Queen street car, watching as Jenny hopped out. It was after one in the morning, the all-night bus service was rare, and this particular stretch of Queen was all but deserted. So it was odd that those five young men should get off at the same unlikely stop, miles from any residential area, shopping, or after-hours clubs. There wasn't so much as a pizza stand or video store within a kilometre.

They stayed back a few yards, and the girl they stalked barely registered their existence, too wrapped up in her own rioting emotions -- lingering fury at NC, fear for Karen, low-level anxiety for herself, alone at this hour in an unfamiliar area of Toronto, and a stubborn determination overriding all else, not to let anything stop her.

Urs waited until the boys approached an alley, then took advantage of the shadows to land, and burst out into the sidewalk in front of them.

She didn't have the finesse or power of older vampires with the hypnotic mesmerism, and she wasn't sure she could handle five of them, but there was more than one way to handle a gang of punks. In mortal life she had been a night-club entertainer, and had learned any number of tricks for dealing with awkward males that stopped short of ripping out throats. She put a bit of attitude in her walk, and a suggestive smile on her lips.

"Hello, boys. What's happening?"

They hesitated, momentarily distracted. Two of them stopped to chat her up while the other three cursed them, and continued. Two, Urs could handle. In seconds, they were slumped against the side of a brick building, sound asleep. Urs flew to the next alley, and, again, slipped in before the last three. And then they were sleeping like babies too.

But when Urs looked around, she could see no sign of Jenny. Unsure whether to be angry or frightened, Urs took to the air, in search of the child.

~0~

Tracy sounded a little breathless over the phone. "Vachon! I just got in, got your message. What's up?"

"Tracy. How's the cop biz?"

"Cut the crap, Vachon. You don't leave a message like that one and then play games. Where's Jenny?"

"On her way to look up a guy named Ricky L..."

"Christ! Did you call Nick?"

"I don't have him in my Rollodex, no. I get the impression that your partner doesn't think much of me. I thought I'd leave it to you to deliver the bad news."

"Oh. Right. Well, thanks."

"Tracy! How about dinner sometime?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll call you. I've got to run."

She hung up on him. Really, Vachon thought with a sour twist of his lips, he must be losing his touch. There was a time when no woman, no matter what her life expectancy, could resist him. But tonight, neither Urs nor Tracy seemed to be having any problems.

In another moment, he found himself seriously considering a wander down to Parkdale, to see what all the noise was about. Not that there was any cause for alarm. He had no doubt that Urs could take care of herself and the kid until Tracy arrived. And Tracy was in no danger from a scum like Ricky L, with or without her supernatural partner. But just to be on the safe side, and avoid misunderstandings, maybe he should make himself available.

~0~

Nick arrived back at his loft after a frustrating shift spent trying to settle a gang-related hit in Chinatown that had political repercussions, and a hotter-than-hot priority rating. It galled him to spend time on something open-and-shut but time consuming and tricky like that when he ought to be tracking down a real menace like Ricky L. It positively enraged him that more resources would always be available for dealing with crimes already committed than for a little preventive police work.

But as soon as he heard LeCroix's cold voice on his machine, he felt any blood he did possess congeal into ice.

"She was here again, Nicolas. Let me be brutally blunt. If she comes in again, I swear to you, she won't walk away -- not in her mortal lifetime."

LeCroix never made threats. Never. He stated facts. 

"If you wish to find her," that silky voice went on, "I suggest you look for your friend Ricky L. He'll know where to put his finger on her, I'm sure."

Nick didn't wait to listen to the next message.

But once in his Caddy, he dialled Tracy's cell-phone number.

"Nick! Thank God. You got my message?"

"No, Tracy, but--"

"I got a tip from Vachon. Jenny went back to *the Raven* tonight, asking for Ricky L. I think we can assume someone told her what she wanted to know."

"How long ago."

"About an hour. I didn't get the message myself until ten minutes ago. I'm en route. The address is Queen and Latimer, in Parkdale. Can you meet me?"

"I'm on my way. Tracy, wait till I get there, okay?"

"You aren't expecting any trouble, are you?"

"I don't know. I can't keep the Cramer case out of my head. Why did Jenny go there?"

"Don't know that. Guess we'll have to ask her when we see her. I'll wait for you on the scene."

~0~

There was something very wrong, Urs knew. The young human had disappeared as if swallowed by the night. Then she heard a gun-shot shatter the unnatural silence. Then two more in quick succession. A scream. A shout.

She arrowed toward the noise, landed on a warehouse roof, swept down to the ground floor, and broke down the first door she found. She ran to the stairs, sure that the noise had come from higher in the building. The warmth was up there.

But even as she whisked up the stairs, she could smell it already -- the hot, sweet aroma of blood pumping into the open air. And with it, the seductive, bitter-sweet beat of a mortal heart fading fainter and fainter...

~0~

Vachon, Tracy and Knight all arrived at the same moment, but from different directions. They converged on Knight's Caddy as he parked on the street behind his partner's car. The warehouse before them seemed dark and silent, to mortal senses like Tracy's. But even she noticed that the south door was swinging crazily on one hinge, still teetering back and forth.

As for Nick and Javier, the reek of blood filled their nostrils. Nick also had the experience to recognise cordite -- gun powder.

The two cops drew their guns, and Nick used a mere frown to get Vachon to keep behind them. He and Tracy were trained for this. It was second nature to them both. And they had been partners long enough now to know each other's movements, trust each other's reflexes, to work together in an efficient unit.

Vachon held back, therefore, and admired the way they moved -- almost like a dance. He hadn't realised how close a mortal and a vampire could get, until he watched them work like two parts of one being. And he repressed a stab of jealousy.

Nick and Tracy performed a sweep of the ground floor, quick but thorough, just enough to assure themselves it was really deserted, and no bad guys would jump out to ambush them from behind. The same for the second floor. But both Nick and Vachon realised that it was the third floor they needed to search.

Urs was in the dimly lit hall, leaning propped against the wall, next to the open door of Ricky L's office, her head in her arms, as if trying to hide, shaking with weakness.

Tracy might think Urs was suffering from shock. But Nick and Vachon knew better. The overpowering stench of hot blood was more than the young vampire could endure, so close, so temptingly available.

Nick turned to Vachon. "Get Urs outside. The roof. She'll be all right with a little fresh air. Go."

Then he and Tracy framed the door, and burst through it, guns lifted, braced, and ready.

He hadn't allowed himself to think of what he might find. It would have crippled him, and he needed to be on top form. But the first thing he saw was Jenny in an otherwise-deserted office, kneeling and slumped over, back to the door, and the blood spreading across the grimy floor.

Only when he took the next step inside did he see that she cradled something in her lap.

Karen O'Connor was curled in a foetal ball, head in Jenny's lap, with three gaping holes in her young body. She was dead. But she hadn't been dead very long. She was still warm.

Jenny rocked gently back and forth, not making a sound. She probably didn't even realise there was anyone else there. Or if she did, she didn't care. She rocked back and forth.

She was alive, and sheer relief left Nick light-headed for a moment. He hadn't realised until that moment just how afraid he had been for her. But she had taken a blow to the heart that left her stunned. And Nick would have given anything to have spared her more pain. She had already born enough, with her father's death.

Nick knelt beside her, a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She shook it off with a shudder, and began to moan softly.

"No, no, no..." she begged of no one in particular, over and over again.

Nicolas winced, and felt the rage build in him at whoever had done this -- brutally cut off one life, and wounded another.

He turned to Tracy. "Call it in as a murder. Have them put out an APB on Richard Larraby. We'll need the coroner. And call the paramedics. She's in shock."

Tracy nodded, and went away.

While she was gone, Vachon returned. Even he looked a bit strained at the sight of all that blood. "Urs is better now, but she doesn't trust herself to come back down. You want us to stick around?"

"Did she see who did it?"

"Nope. She was following the kid, trying to protect her, but she got distracted by some punks, and lost her. Heard the shot, came on the double -- she's the one broke that door -- and found this."

Nick glanced down at Jenny, but the girl was oblivious to everything. He nodded. "Thanks, Vachon. I'll need to talk to Urs later, but I'll try to keep you both out of it as much as possible. Oh... Tell her thanks for me."

Vachon nodded. "Sorry about this. I really didn't think... If I'd known..."

"I guess we're all second-guessing ourselves now. Go on. Take Urs home. I'll talk to you later."

When the paramedics and coroner's assistants arrived, things got awkward. Jenny hung onto the body with unexpected strength, and began to scream hysterically. "No! Leave her alone! Don't touch her! Don't anyone touch her! You don't care. Nobody cares but me. Leave her alone!"

Nick tried to talk her down, speaking calmly, soothingly, putting a touch of push behind it. But nothing got through the shell of shock.

Coroner Dr. Natalie Lambert arrived a little later.

"Oh my God, Nick. How's Jenny?"

Nat had known the Schanke family longer than Nick, and being both human and female, was in many ways closer to Myra and Jenny. Nick could only shrug in answer. "I was hoping you could tell me. It's shock. But it's pretty bad. Karen O'Connor was her best friend. She won't let go of the body."

Natalie signed the other technicians, forensics team members and cops out of the way, and went to kneel next to Jenny, careful to avoid the pools of blood.

"Jenny? It's me, honey. Nat."

Bleary eyes stared unseeingly up. "Natalie?"

"That's right, honey. Come on. Let me take her."

A spasm of panic jolted through the girl. "No! You'll cut her up! You'll hurt her."

"Jenny, I'll be careful. I promise you. I won't hurt Karen. But it's got to be done. You know that. You've got to let me take her away from here."

Slowly, gently, Nat prised Jenny's white frozen fingers away from the corpse, and separated the two. The whole front of Jenny's blouse and her jeans were soaked in blood. Nat signed for two attendants to come and take the body, while she folded Jenny's slack body in her arms.

"I know, honey. I know."

At last, Jenny gave herself up to the storm of weeping. Natalie handed Jenny to the paramedics standing ready, consulted with them for a moment on treatment, then warned her assistants to treat the mortal remains of young Karen O'Connor with care.

And then she turned to Nick. "You'll get this guy."

He nodded solemnly. "I have to talk to her. Do you think she's up to it?"

"Oh, Nick, I don't know... She ought to be in hospital, under heavy sedation. She ought to be signed up for therapy, to deal with this."

"And she's our only witness to a murder. Are you speaking as a doctor, or as honorary Godmother?"

Natalie thought about that, then turned a shrewd eye on Nick. No one, not even LeCroix, knew him as well as this mortal woman did, who knew his darkest secret, and shared his greatest dream. "Oh yes, and you're so objective, Mr. Ice-for-blood? I saw the look on your face when I walked in here. Hell, Nick, all my instincts want to protect Jenny from this... The same as yours do. But you're right. She's a strong kid. Give her a day, and she'll be able to give you--"

Tracy ducked her head in the door.

"Nick, Jenny's ready to go downtown. I'll run her over now. You want to come with us, or wait here for the forensic team to finish up?"

Nat and Nick stared at each other. "Jenny's ready to go?"

"That's what she says. She's still a little green around the gills, but she says she wants to nail the bastard's hide to the wall. I promised her we'd help her do just that. Coming?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm with you."

~0~

Jenny was very quiet, sitting at the table in one of the station interrogation rooms, but her hands trembled in her lap, betraying her. It cut Nick to the quick. She was biddable as a puppet, moving where they posed her, and as lively. Captain Joe Reese met the two detectives in the hall. Someone was sent for hot chocolate.

"The ME has the body?" Reese asked.

"Nat's going to handle this herself. She promised Jenny."

"Look, Nick, if this is awkward for you, being so close to the girl, let me know and I'll--"

"No, Cap. I can do this."

Reese glanced past the one-way mirror into the little cork-walled room. "How's she holding up?"

"She's fifteen years old and she just watched her best friend die. I think she's doing pretty well, considering. It was Jenny insisted on coming straight here. I was going to send her to hospital."

"Someone said there were two other witnesses on the scene."

Tracy stiffened imperceptibly. It had been an unpleasant surprise finding Vachon at the warehouse. As far as Tracy was concerned, the further Vachon stayed away from her very shrewd partner, the better. She wasn't sure about Urs, but chances were that young-looking friend of Javier's was also a vampire. The last thing Tracy wanted was to see either of them uncloaked in the light of day. Nick was so straight-arrow, there was no telling what his reaction might be if he ever discovered that incredible truth. He might threaten to reveal it to the world, and so risk his life. Tracy had promised to keep it secret, and only so could Vachon protect her from the vengeance of his strange little Community.

Nick was aware of Tracy's reaction. It was one of the more complicated aspects of their partnership, that he knew she knew, but she didn't know he knew she knew... Much less the fact that he was the same thing Vachon was.

To Reese's question he replied casually, "Vachon was the one warned us about Jenny tonight. He only arrived when we did -- he doesn't know anything. As for the girl, Urs... She didn't see anything either. She was pretty rocky when we got there. I had Vachon take her home. I took her preliminary statement. We can question her later."

"So," Reese sighed, "the bottom line is, Jennifer Schanke is our only witness. All right. I know I don't have to tell you to go easy, but we need to know everything she can tell us. I want this guy behind bars, fast."

~0~

Jenny wrapped cold hands around the Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate, blowing over the steaming surface.

Nick and Tracy entered, took seats at the table.

"Are you ready?" Nick asked.

Jenny looked up at him, her dark eyes dull with pain, but she nodded. She took a deep breath and began.

"Karen met Ricky L last weekend at a party. I wasn't there, it wasn't my kind of party... but she raved about him all next day at school, how he was a big shot producer, said she had talent. I thought it was all air. Either Karen was making it up, or the guy had been piling it on. But after classes, as we were leaving school, this big stretch limo pulls up to the sidewalk, and the door opens. The guy in back invites us in. So Karen and I got in. It was Ricky L."

Nick vaulted from his chair and paced. "You got into a car with a strange man? For God's sake, Jenny, what were you thinking?"

Tracy watched the fragile opening slam shut, as the girl hunched her shoulders protectively against his harsh words. Tracy was astounded. She'd never seen Nick make a mistake like that. She glared a warning at him which he did not take well as he stalked back and forth across the small room.

"Go on," Tracy pushed in a soothing voice.

Jenny glanced warily at Nick, and haltingly continued.

"He wasn't really a stranger. Karen knew him. Anyway, he took us to this bar downtown--"

"You went to a bar?" Nick yelped, in spite of straining not to say another word.

Jenny flinched, and Tracy decided enough was enough. "Nick, can I see you in the hall for a second?"

She practically dragged her partner out of the interrogation room. "Nick," she told him, "you are too close to this. Let me handle the questions, okay? You get a coffee, or a valium or something."

It was only because he knew she was right that he didn't tear her head off for her and hand it to her. And Reese suppressed a smile that should have won him a gut-wound, too.

Tracy returned, and settled with a sigh. "Sorry about that. Nick isn't usually like that. But this is tough on him, too. He cares about you, Jenny."

Again, the girl winced, tears leaking from her iron control. "I know," she mumbled. "He hasn't gone very far, has he?"

"Nope. Probably the other side of the mirror. But forget about that. Just tell me the story. Take your time."

Jenny nodded. It was a lot easier with Tracy's noncommittal, non-judgemental attitude. It also helped that she hadn't been a friend of the Schanke family for years, and thought herself entitled to play surrogate parent.

"Ricky L took us to a bar after school, one where a lot of actors and film people hang out -- you know, people from the TV shows they're filming around town, those kinds of people. Ricky waved at all of them, and they waved back. I still didn't believe his line -- I figured he was still blowing air. But Karen was impressed.

"He wanted to take us to dinner, both of us, but I insisted he take us home, to my place. Karen thought I was being stupid, but she went along. I dragged her into my house, made Ricky take off, and we had dinner there. Mom would never have allowed Karen to stay, but Mom's been gone on a conference this week. Cooper wasn't happy about it, but I didn't care. There was just something about Ricky I didn't trust. He came and picked us up Wednesday and Thursday too, the same drill.

"Anyway, Karen cornered me Friday, said Ricky wanted to take us out for the night – to *the Raven*. Well, you know the rep that place has got. Karen was all revved to go, but she said Ricky wanted to take both of us. All we had to do was get some ID somehow... I knew it was a disaster. But I figured if I didn't go, Karen would go on her own anyway, and I thought maybe if I was along, as chaperon... Besides, I wanted to see the inside of the place. My dad used to talk about it."

Tracy smiled, remembering her own attempts at youthful rebellion, and recognising something of the same explorer spirit. "So, did it meet your expectations?"

Jenny smiled briefly. "It's pretty wild, all right..." But the moment shut down at the thought of LeCroix... "But it's mostly hot air. I should have known. I guess you know the owner busted us. Karen and Ricky walked out on me, and LeCroix called Nick to come get me. Nick told me about Ricky, about his criminal record and everything...

"To tell you the truth, I wasn't really surprised. I called Karen, to warn her. I tried to talk her into dumping Ricky. I thought I succeeded. I guess... I didn't."

The weight of that failure threatened to crush her where she sat. She had tried so hard... And Karen was dead.

"Jenny, stay with me," Tracy prodded gently. "You said you convinced Karen to dump Ricky L. That was Friday night?"

"Yes."

"All right then. Let's bring it up to Saturday. Tell me about it."

"I tried to find her. I called everywhere. I went everywhere. Our friends, her friends, someone said they thought she was down at the Forum... I couldn't find her. I figured she was deliberately avoiding me. And I guessed it was because she didn't do what I asked. I ran out of places to look. But she mentioned that Ricky had promised to take her to *the Raven* again... I figured, even if they aren't there, I can find out where to track down Ricky L. So I went to *the Raven*."

Out in the hall, Nick swore softly, and began pacing again, like a tiger in a cage.

"Not a bad piece of detection," Tracy admitted. "Your dad wound be proud, I think. What did you find?"

"Nobody had seen Karen, or they said they didn't." Jenny thought again of the Night Crawler. She forcefully put the image away, with a deep breath. "Urs tried to warn me, told me not to go. She said I should call Nick, tell him everything. Maybe if I had, maybe then Karen would..."

"Stop that thought right there," Tracy told her bracingly. "Whatever happened tonight, you did everything you could to stop it, right? You weren't the one who pulled the trigger. So don't take the blame. Right?"

Jenny didn't look totally convinced. "Someone told me the address for Ricky's production company. I went out there."

She took a long swallow of the tepid chocolate.

"Some of the doors were locked, but I found one that wasn't. It was dark inside. The first floor was all movie sets, but... well, it wasn't hard to guess what kind of movies. Mostly beds, with satin sheets, and... ropes, whips, chains, that kind of stuff.

"I heard voices. Not loud, not enough to recognise, or make out words. I thought I heard footsteps, on the stairs, so I hid. Then I heard a gunshot. It was so loud... I thought at first it was a two-by-four beam falling. But then there were two more.

"And then I heard Karen's scream.

"I started shouting, and ran up the stairs. I found her in the office. She was still alive, wrapped up in a ball. I held her as tight as I could.

"'Don't leave me,' she begged. 'Help me, Jenny, I hurt.' I tried to get up, to get to a phone, call for help, but she kept saying, 'Don't leave me!' So I didn't. I just held her... Until she was dead."

There was silence in the small room, and Tracy reached out to hold Jenny's cold, cold hand.

"Did you see anyone? You said you heard footsteps."

"No. The place was dark, all in shadows, except for the office. There was a light burning there."

"Did Karen say anything else?"

Jenny shook her head slowly, then stiffened, her eyes flying up to Tracy's in sudden awareness. "You mean, who shot her?"

And there was a moment, when Jenny realised she had a choice... It was there. All she had to do was pick it up.

But, no. She just wasn't that kind of person.

"No. She said something goofy about Ricky wanting me all along, not her at all, but I wasn't listening. Karen got a little jealous sometimes. I figure that's all that was."

Tracy nodded, and gave her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. "There. That's over. It wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No. But now I have to face Nick. And Natalie, and Cooper, and my mom..."

Tracy smiled. "It's good to know people care, though."

Jenny nodded, her eyes still bleak, with no light in them, and little warmth. "Yeah, it is. But... You know how many people there were who cared about Karen? Who would have gone chasing after her, raced to her rescue, hassled her when she did something stupid, fought to keep her safe? One. Just one. Me."

Tracy swallowed on a lump. "At least she had you."

When the detective got up to leave, Jenny put out a hand to stop her. "Tracy... What if I told you I did see someone at the warehouse? Or that I just remember, Karen did say who shot her?"

Tracy smiled. "I probably wouldn't believe you. And Nick and I would waste a couple of days checking your story, sorting out the fact from the fiction, spinning our wheels, when we could be getting to the real investigation."

Jenny gave a defeated sigh. "Yeah, that's what I figured."

"Don't worry, Jenn. We'll get him. Nick and I are pretty good at this, you know."

"Yeah, I know. Dad always said Nick was the best."

~0~

Tracy joined Nick and Reese in the corridor.

"No weapon at the scene," Nick recapped, ticking points off on his fingers, "no sign of Larraby, no witnesses. It sounds like there were two others with the O'Connor girl tonight. Larraby and a client, maybe?"

Tracy suggested, "Or a film crew. Well, he said he was a film producer, he was offering Karen a film career."

Reese shrugged. "Either way, we need to have a little talk with Richard Larraby. I've got the APB out, but we'll probably need a little help."

Natalie arrived, still in her lab coat, the dark stains on the front glaringly obvious against the white material. She held a file folder out to Nick.

"Three bullet wounds, .32 calibre, at close range. Powder marks on her clothes. Two to the abdomen, one glanced off a rib and lodged near the heart. Cause of death was actually blood loss. It was quick, but she didn't die right away. And, you're not going to like this -- she'd had sexual intercourse about an hour before death. I couldn't find any evidence of force, but it was definitely her first time. I took samples. I'll have a profile for you tomorrow."

No one liked that news very much. The waste, the horror, the sordidness...

Nick broke out of it first. "She was fully clothed when we found her."

Natalie nodded. "I'd say the two events were not directly related. She might have been anywhere the hour before, then brought to the warehouse, or the office."

Reese said, "I'll get the forensics team to go over the whole warehouse. The place is a perfect set-up for that sort of thing. All right, people. Who's going to see the mother?"

That sent a shudder through them all. Tracy reluctantly volunteered, "I'll do it, cap. It's almost dawn."

"I'll take Jenny home," Natalie added. "And Nick, shouldn't you be booking off soon?" Like, within the next ten minutes, if he expected to reach his home before the sun rose over his dashboard.

He hesitated, however, watching the child in the interrogation room, slumped on the table, her head in her arms, her shoulders trembling.

"You'll take care of her?" he asked softly.

"Don't worry. Let me call Myra, let her know what's happened. You go home. Now."

~0~

"Once again, my friends, the night is murdered by the first deadly rays of the morning sun. Time for this poor wanderer of the night to crawl away into his hole. But I leave you with this happy thought to carry you through the day.

"Children are the bane of the world. They are the cruellest trick Nature ever played upon we parasites crawling over Her face. With each new batch of hell-born babes, we fool ourselves into thinking a new lease has been given us, a new hope, a future, a foothold on immortality.

"But let us be honest here, dear listener. Above all, let us have the truth.

"Why should we expect our children to avoid the mistakes we made? Why chain them with the awful injunction of being better than us? Who is to teach them this trick, after all?

"No no, it won't wash. Give it up. Face the brutal truth.

"Children are our legacy, that is true. Which means that what they truly carry in them is our faults, our failures, our short-comings. It just comes in different guises, that's all. They are our punishment for having been born at all. We are trapped by them, chained to them, seduced into caring for them, only to have our experience scoffed at, our words of wisdom ignored, our lives measured, judged and ridiculed, our hearts broken as we stand by, helpless, to watch them pitch headlong into the same mistakes we made. They are the goads invented to torture us, to drive us into early graves, to make way for the offspring they will beget, who will brutalise them as badly -- our revenge on them. Just a part of Nature's own recycling plan.

"Drown them at birth, I say. Save us all a lot of bother.

"And with that, sweet listener, I bid you good day."

~0~

Natalie's eyebrows raised. "I wonder if someone put vinegar in his coffee."

Jenny slumped boneless in the passenger seat of Nat's car, too exhausted to lift her head from the door. "No, I pissed him off earlier, that's all."

Natalie almost ran a red light. "Pardon me? You pissed off the Night Crawler? And just how did you manage to do that?"

"I met him, at *the Raven*. His name's LeCroix. He owns the club, and he has a radio studio in the back. I went there looking for Karen, and he caught me. He tried to read me the riot act, make me stay for Nick. He said stuff, and I said stuff... then I walked out. I guess he's still pissed, with snot-nosed kids in general, and me in particular."

~0~

It was not Jenny in his mind as he flipped the last switch to shut down his studio. *The Raven* had long since shut and locked its doors against the coming day, dark, empty and quiet as a tomb now. LeCroix sat in his custom chair, leaning back with a calming goblet of A negative, remembering another time.

~0~

A time beneath the terrifying pall of Mount Vesuvius. The shuddering of the terror-struck earth, hurtling buildings to the ground, as if the columns and walls were themselves diving for cover, bowing their heads for protection from the rain of ash and cinders and pumice chunks in the smoke-choked haze.

There was no way to tell if it was day or night. It could have been either in the thick sulphur-throttled fogs.

"Do not fear, father," Divia told him, taking his hand. "We are immortal now. Nothing can harm us. He said so."

"Who said so?" he demanded, nose wrinkling at the smell, feeling the pelt of burning hail singe through his clothes.

"Why, the physician from the east, he who made me. He said he knows you, father, from your Syrian campaign. He promised he would cure me, for your sake, and he did. He said I would live forever, and need fear nothing. But I don't like the sun, and I found out for myself what I must do when the hunger comes upon me. And I guessed that I could make you just as he made me. I chose you father. Not mother -- she is weak, she wouldn't understand. You and I, we will be together forever."

She clung to his arm.

He looked about them, knowing, somehow, that there were things that could kill them. And an erupting volcano was one of them. "Will not the fire claim us? Divia, we must leave here."

"Don't worry father."

"Divia." He spoke forcefully to her, and finally managed to gain her attention. "Enough of this. We are leaving this place. Now. We will return to Rome, travelling by night."

Divia shrugged. "Very well, father. If you insist."

"I am still your father. You will obey me."

She shot one lightning glance at him, and he could read it without words -- it is I who have made you, father, and I who am the teacher. Perhaps I need not obey anyone now, with this new power growing inside me.

The rebellious streak was new. He had never seen it in his precious Divia before. But he could feel the overwhelming euphoria of fresh blood coursing through his body, from the slaves they had killed and fed on together. The power he felt! The strength, the control... Truly invulnerable.

But he had drunk wines, taken rare herbs that could give similar illusions, and he mistrusted it. Divia was too young, too innocent, to understand what might be happening to her. And it seemed to him that this mysterious physician she spoke of had not told her everything about her new state. Had, perhaps, lied to her.

He pulled her down the deserted, transformed street toward the harbour, conscious that she was dragging, far less anxious then he to leave Pompeii.

~0~


	5. Hazardous Fishing

~0~

Ricky L glanced furtively around the corner before he dared approach the back alley door of the small shop on Queen East. It was an antique-cum-junque catch-all of broken glass and china, rickety furniture, and knickknacks that had once come out of an attic chest, or a box of tea bags. From the thickness of the dust layering everything, it was obvious few shoppers ventured more than a few feet down the main aisle.

Ricky didn't venture into the front portion at all. He stayed behind the curtain, while one old woman lingered over an old treadle sewing machine, asking in a voice as squeaky as the ancient mechanism, "But, does it really work?"

When she finally went away, he held the thin curtain back and said, "Turner. We have to talk."

Walter Turner's face did not change. He nodded, locked the front door and flipped the closed sign out, then came back to sit on a creaking ladder back chair.

"So talk."

Ricky slapped the morning newspaper in front of him. "What the hell is this? What happened after I left last night?"

"Precisely what you knew would happen. The little whore was going to talk. She was going to tell the police about your operation. She would have put you in jail, Ricky, and nothing would have saved your ass this time. More important, she was going to tell her friend about me."

Ricky glared in disgust. "I didn't know you were going to kill her."

"Of course you did. You'd have done it yourself, if I hadn't been so handy. But I’m used to cleaning up your messes. That Cramer girl. She was going to tell, wasn't she? With your record, another conviction for statutory rape against a minor would have finished you. I didn’t hear you complaining then."

"Yeah, well... You might have made a neater job of it this time. The cops are all over my warehouse, impounded all my equipment, all my papers. I can't go back. They'll probably have my face plastered all over the papers by this evening. I'm busted anyway."

"I had to get out fast. There was someone else in the warehouse. I heard a shout after I pulled the trigger. You must have walked right by them."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But I suspect your little whore's good and loyal friend came looking for her. The O'Connor brat said she would, didn't she?"

"She said a lot of things at the last, when she finally figured out what I wanted with her."

"Yes. Not quite the brainless little bimbo you thought she was. Oh well. As long as you're here, let's talk about our next move. How do we convince the Schanke girl to walk into our arms without her obliging friend as bait?"

Ricky stared at him, aghast. "You're nuts. We can't move on Schanke now."

"Why not?"

"Why not! We're wanted for murder, that's why not! There's probably a warrant out on me, maybe one on you, since you were so clumsy, you probably left fingerprints all over the place. If we break cover, they'll nail us."

"Nonsense. Even if they identify my fingerprints, they belong to another name, another life. And why should they go any deeper? What will they think, after all? That a worthless white-trash little whore got in too deep and ended up dead. That's all. A one-shot tragedy, all too common these days. Nothing to do with her upright, clean-living, straight-arrow little school chum. No connection at all. And, therefore, no reason anyone will be hovering around Jennifer Schanke. She's there for the plucking, Ricky. But you're the expert. How do we reel her in?"

"The hell with you. No way am I staying around here, lining up to be some cop's hot lunch. Schanke may be dead, but his partner isn't. And it's Nick Knight you ought to be worried about, pal. No way am I playing chicken with that dude. I'm leaving for Vancouver, soon as you pay me what you owe me."

"What I owe you? Ah, Ricky, but you haven't fulfilled your contract. I still don't have Schanke. And I will not rest until I have her in my grasp, until I can see terror in those velvet brown eyes, her father's fearless eyes. Only then, when I have visited upon her every indignity I experienced in that prison cell where Detective Don Schanke put me, only then will I feel peace. When she's dead, then I will rest. And then I will settle my debt with you. Not before."

~0~

Jennifer lay awake in her room. In the other room, she could hear voices. They were trying to be quiet, in deference to her, but Jenny strained to hear.

"I've given her a pretty strong sedative, Myra," Natalie was saying over the phone. "She should sleep the day through... No, she seems to be over the physical effects of the shock, but it's the emotional scars that worry me. Karen was her friend... I know, but Jenny cared for her very much. She did everything she could, and it wasn't enough. I think she feels guilty for that... I'm glad you're coming home, Myra. She needs you here... Sure. Here he is."

"Yeah, Myra?" Cooper said. "Right, four o'clock, Pearson International, Terminal One. Flight number... Yeah, got it. I'll be there. If she's awake by then, I'll bring her with me. If not, I'll let her sleep through... Okay. Bye."

"That's it for me, then," Natalie said, sounding exhausted. "If she wakes up, have her take one of these. Just one, though, not closer than three hours part."

"Right."

"If there's anything, anything at all, call me."

"Right. Thanks, Natalie."

"No problem, Cooper. Just... try and be understanding. She must feel like she's had a hole blown through her, just now."

"I know." And, oddly enough, Robbie Cooper did understand what it was to lose someone. Everyone. He had been on his own, an abandoned street kid subsisting in sewers when Don Schanke had tripped over him. And brought him home, to give him the first taste of hope Robbie had ever known. Jenny had never admired her father more. Maybe that was what she had been trying to do with Karen. Give another person the first chance at hope they had ever had. But Jenny had failed. And it cost Karen her life.

She had never felt more weary, or less like sleeping. The pills Natalie had made her take were melting in the palm of her hand. She didn't dare go to sleep. She didn't know what might invade her dreams. Even waking, no matter where she looked, all she could see was Karen, bleeding, dying in her arms. Jenny could still see the red marks where Karen had gripped her hand, as if the dying girl could cling to existence that way, holding tighter and tighter in desperation as she lost feeling, lost warmth, lost life.

"It was you he wanted all along, Jenn. Don't let... Don't let... God, it hurts... Don't leave me!"

It had taken half an hour under the full force of a steaming-hot shower to boil away the impression of blood covering her shuddering body.

But lying awake was dangerous too, leaving her open to thoughts. Crazy ideas, crazier fears.

Nobody had cared about Karen when she was alive. Why would they care now that she was dead? Just another wild teen, just another statistic. White trash, not worth the bother. LeCroix wasn't the only one to say that, behind Karen's back, and to her face, until the poor girl began to believe it.

Now Larraby, her killer, had slipped away on the police. All he had to do was zip down to Queenston, or over to Ganonoque, and he could be gone. He got away with murder before, Jennifer now knew, a kid her age. Why shouldn't he get away with it this time? Jenny cursed herself for not making up a story good enough to convince Tracy and Nick. She could have seen the bastard. Karen could have named him.

Karen was dead, and her murderer was walking around free.

She hadn't been able to save her friend, but maybe she could avenge her. Maybe that would relieve the horrible feeling that there were iron bands around her chest, squeezing tighter, crushing her.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the notion.

If he was still in town, Jennifer might just be able to do what the police couldn't, and find Larraby. The first step was the party he had crashed last weekend, where he had met Karen. But she had a babysitter, watching her like a hawk. She needed a plan, needed some room.

By five, her mom would be home. But it would have to be before sunset, anyway. Once night fell, Nick would be at the door. But Cooper would be leaving at three to get to the airport for four o'clock. That was it.

Jennifer wasn't crazy enough to go hunting a killer unarmed.

The day after the funeral, Myra Schanke had dried her eyes, packed up everything of her husband's -- clothes, shoes, Playboy collection -- and sent it to the Salvation Army. As if she were packing up and getting rid of his memory. Jenny had felt her own heart wither, stuffed into another cardboard box and shipped away with the rest. She had been unable to talk to her mother since. One of the only things of his that were left was in a shoebox at the back of her mother's closet. Her father's service revolver.

Unloaded, sure, but she didn't have to tell Larraby that.

~0~

It was past seven at night, the sun sliding behind the Toronto office towers, and Ricky sat in Turner's little kitchen, sharing a pizza, staring at his cell phone in amazement.

"No, no, man. That's okay. You did right to give her my number. I've got a little something going there, as it happens... No, man, it's a bad rap. The kid was getting it on with some john, broke into my studio, and I guess things must have turned ugly. I'll get it sorted out in a day or two, but till then... Yeah, puts a hell of a crimp in business, eh? But you're sure the Schanke girl was asking for me?... And you gave her this number?... Terrific. Thanks man. I owe you one... Yeah, Gloria was the one I was thinking about. I'll arrange it right away... Sure thing. Later, man. Bye."

He was still shaking his head as he regarded Turner. "*She's* looking for *us*."

"That's good."

"Maybe. What if it's a set-up? A police trap?"

"Using a minor? A dead cop's daughter? I don't think so."

"Maybe it's her idea, then."

"Why don't you wait, and ask her."

They didn't have long. The cell-phone twittered, and Ricky let it go on, so as not to seem too anxious. Then he answered, casually. "Hi there, Ricky L in the house."

"I want to know what happened," came the terse, tight voice. "Karen went with you last night. Now she's dead. How? Why?"

"It wasn't me, sweet-heart, I swear. When I left the warehouse, she was safe and sound. But that area of town is pretty risky. I've had a number of break-ins, mostly local punks wanting a little kink, vandalism. I figure they must have found Karen, and... I'm sorry. Real sorry."

"Why did you leave her alone?" Wary now, doubtful. The wary little trout was buying it, he could tell, ready to snap at the lure. Give her line...

"I was just going to the corner store, to get some stuff. Cigarettes, and... some rubbers, if you must know. By the time I got back, the place was swarming with cops, and I got out of there."

"Why? If you were innocent, why run?"

"Sweet-heart, when it comes to the police, everyone is guilty until proved innocent. And I couldn't prove a damned thing. I've got a record. That would have made me number one, with a bullet. I wasn't going to line up for that."

The silence on the other end was thoughtful.

"Look, Jenn, I know the timing is bad, but... Well, I was working on a job last night, with Karen. Whatever you think, I was serious about giving her a shot at stardom. We were actually filming a screen test last night. Went pretty well... Jesus. What a waste of an exceptional talent... Anyway, I made a commitment to supply a fresh, new face for a TV show. The fact that I'm hiding out just now isn't going to cut much ice with the TV producer. I louse this up and I've lost my toe-hold on a real, legitimate shot at the brass ring. What do you say to filling in for Karen?"

"The police are looking for you! You can't pretend it's all business as usual. They think you murdered Karen!"

"Hey, sweet-heart, murder investigations come and go, but business is business. Just meet me, do a screen test. No dialogue, all you have to do is stand there and look pretty. And I know you can do that."

"You must be nuts!"

"No, sweet-heart, I'm desperate. So you don't want to help me out. I'm not asking you to do it for free. There's five hundred dollars in it for you, for half an hour work. And if the producer likes what he sees... You know what they're paying for a guest shot on a TV show? You can work your way through college. But if you won't do it for yourself, or me, do it for Karen. You know how bad she wanted this. She'd want you to go for it. *Carpe Noctem*, baby."

Jenny smiled grimly. Damn the fast-talking bastard, he was right. Karen would want just that. Was this how he seduced her? By giving her just enough truth to make her blind to the lies? Just like the Night Crawler.

Jenny tightened her grip on the gun in her pocket, and exercised more of her acting talent. "Well... You don't think it's... disrespectful? Karen's still on a slab at the morgue."

"Sweet-heart, if I had a choice, I'd take it. But I need that test for tomorrow, early."

"You can't do it. You can't go back to your warehouse."

"I've got more than one location. I can't tell you over the phone, but meet me somewhere, I'll take you there. You know *the Raven*. Meet me there, in an hour."

"I don't think that's a good idea. They know me. They'll call the cops on me."

"Don't go inside. Wait for me out front."

She hesitated just enough to make it convincing. "Okay. I'll meet you. But it can't be until later. I can't get away until later."

~0~

Nick didn't get much sleep. He kept in contact with the station by phone, frustrated by the negative results piling up. No sign of Ricky L. The mysterious second set of prints had finally been identified, but it was from an old case, a man who was supposed to be dead. Nick requested his package be faxed to his apartment, and he had gone over it. It made odd reading. The man was a sex offender, turned serial killer. He specialised in young school-girls, plucked straight off a school yard. The reports by the prison psychiatrist had been glowing. But the man had died in prison. A knife slashing. Not uncommon for prisoners of his type of crime.

The name of the arresting officer in the case was Detective Donald Schanke.

That was alarming.

Nick put it together with a few other curious features of this case, and grew even more alarmed.

Ricky L had made a point, a couple of times, of making sure Karen brought her best friend along on her adventures. Not a very usual request from a man intending to seduce a teenager into prostitution and porn.

Why? Could a ghost from Donny's past have returned for revenge, and, not finding him, decided to target his daughter? It seemed pretty far-fetched to Nick, but... Just the same...

He made a call to the Schanke house.

"No, Nick. Everything's cool here," Cooper assured him. That had been three o'clock. Nick had called back to the station, to suggest that a surveillance team be sent to the Schanke house. The day-watch commander had sounded distracted, but agreeable. He said he'd get on it.

Nick had never resented his debilitating reaction to sunlight more. He was chained here, helpless, while a shadowy danger stalked an equally helpless Jennifer Schanke.

But the very moment the sun touched the horizon, hidden, for the most part, by Toronto's skyline, Nick raced to his car, and sped into the sizzling dusk.

First stop, *the Raven*. If anyone had been seen with Karen before her death, it would have been there. And it was also the logical place to find Urs and Vachon, both witnesses.

It was a little early, but there was already a pretty fair crowd of regulars gathering at the club. Urs and Vachon were among them, waiting at the bar, and obviously expecting his visit. He scanned the patrons for sign of LeCroix, but the tingle he felt just under his skin indicated the Night Crawler was holed up in his office.

Nick went to tackle the younger vampires first.

Urs was still a little shaken. "I'm sorry, Nick. I'm so sorry. I thought I could protect her. She could have been killed too."

"It's okay," Nick reassured the woman. "I want to thank you, Urs. For trying. I appreciate it."

Urs nodded, still miserable. "I don't know how you do it. All that blood... I almost lost it."

"It takes practice. But, Urs, I need to know what you saw last night. Tell me what happened."

"I was following her. But when she got off the Queen car, there were five punks got off, too, following. It took me some time to deal with them, and by the time I did, Jenny was gone. I searched for her, but I was too far away when the shot was fired. Blocks away. I came as soon as I could, but..."

"You didn't see anyone at the warehouse? Anyone running away? No one was hiding inside?"

"No. There was just Jenny and the body."

"What about earlier? Jenny was certain Karen had been here at the club earlier, with Ricky L. Did you see them?"

"No. They weren't here while I was, Nick, and I got here about nine. They didn't come in. I would have noticed. But after Friday night, LeCroix or Micloche would have noticed them too, and kicked them out. Maybe they met outside, or came and changed their minds about coming in."

"Mm. Well, thanks. I don't suppose there's anything you can add?" he asked Vachon.

Javier bristled. "Hey, I was just an observer last night. You're the professional. You saw everything I did."

"Nick?" Urs tried. "I... I feel badly about this. Jenny cared for her so much. Like Karen really mattered..."

"She did matter."

"You'll get this guy, then?"

"Count on it."

"Because, you know... I only saw her the once, but... Karen reminded me of me. The way I once was. It was something in her attitude... Like she didn't give a damn what happened to her, because she knew no one else did, either. I know what that feels like. And I just wish there had been someone in my life like Jenny, who did give a damn."

Nick nodded, and gave Urs a reassuring kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry. I won't let this one fall through the cracks. Karen will have justice."

"Good. Because you know, Jenny won't want to wait for it. If you don't bring him in soon, she'll try to get justice herself."

That Nick had already realised for himself. And since he was becoming convinced that there was more to this whole mess than a troubled kid led astray, the idea of Jenny involving herself any more deeply scared the hell out of him.

The looming, dark presence in the back office called silently to him. Time to confront LeCroix. But Nick sighed. It was not going to be pleasant, that he knew. And the trick was going to be to keep LeCroix from fixating on Jenny. That way lay disaster for all three of them.

"I was expecting you," LeCroix said quietly from the shadows as Nick entered the office, closing the door behind him. "Come about the death, I suppose?"

Nick nodded. "I need to know. Did Karen O'Connor come in here last night?"

"No."

"You sound certain."

"Of course. Do you think I'm lying?"

"No," Nick sighed. "But it would have been nice to establish that she was last seen in public with someone. Mind if I ask around?"

"I thought you knew who she was with last night. Ricky L."

"It's not what I think. It's what I can prove."

"Ah, of course. The requirements of mortal laws and mortal justice. I notice that Urs is in mourning for that little girl. Are you, too? Do you feel responsible for her, as you do for Schanke's daughter?"

"That's two questions, isn't it? Yes, I regret her death. But no, I am not responsible."

LeCroix raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Really. No guilt at all, then? Bravo, Nicolas. Your usual knee-jerk reaction to any tragic event is to assume full responsibility, and then let someone else talk you out of it. Isn't that how you dealt with Schanke's death? Blaming yourself for... what was the reason again? I'm sure you had one."

Nick smiled, refusing to rise to the bait.

"About that message you left on my machine..."

"Oh, that. I was a trifle... annoyed."

"So I gather. I heard your program, too."

"Ah. Do you know, I often assume you're listening? I used to assume you were my only audience. Until recently. Last night, as a matter of fact, wasn't directed your way at all."

"No?"

"No." LeCroix went to his sideboard, and poured himself a dark, thick drink of ruby red liquid. He admired the colour in the faint light of the studio. "I'm quite serious, Nicolas. Keep her away from me, lest I do something... unwise. Something we should both regret."

Nick went very still.

"What did she say to you? What did she do to upset you?"

LeCroix's sensuous lips twisted wryly. "She accused me of lying to myself. Of deluding myself. She finds fault with my philosophical logic. It's quite a bore. She almost convinced me she was right. I find that idea... intolerable."

Nick studied his Master, as if for the first time.

"Don't," Nick said quietly. "Don't cross the line."

LeCroix, affecting amusement, replied, "How predictable of you, Nicolas. Drawing a line in the sand with your toe. And how juvenile. Must be the company you're keeping. Don't you realise yet how foolish it is to set such dares before me? I have never once resisted the temptation to call you on them."

Nick remained calm. "I'm not talking about a line between you and me, LeCroix. This is not another learning opportunity, for you to teach me the difference between immortality and mortality. It isn't another chance for you to pry me away from whatever the hell it is you think I should be pried away from. Attacking Jenny isn't going to make me a better vampire. In fact, this isn't about me at all."

"No? Then what is it about?"

"It's about you, LeCroix. About your own, personal line."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"We all of us have a line between what we pride ourselves to be, and what we know would destroy us. A line between the acts we can forgive ourselves, and what we cannot. I know. I've seen that line in myself. And I've come close enough to know that if I ever crossed it, there would be no coming back. There would be no living with myself."

LeCroix wryly observed, "You aren't finding yourself particularly good company now, as far as I can see."

"This is different. You know that. I think this is your line. See it, LeCroix. See what lies beyond it. You've always prided yourself on your own honesty. You don't deceive yourself. Look at this and see what it means. Why this one mortal child threatens you so, challenges you. Is it because she's showing you a part of yourself you're afraid to examine? And if that's all it is, that she's presenting you with a truth you cannot face, how petty, how low it would be to punish her for what you will not confront. And how futile. Almost as if you would rather live with the lie. As if you would rather have your own self-deceptions rest untested. Destroying Jenny won't protect that dark secret corner of your soul, LeCroix. It will blast it wide open. And how would you, of all people, be able to live with that? Surely, striking at her would be beneath you."

LeCroix stiffened, unable to acknowledge any of this. "Really, Nicolas."

Nick smiled sadly. "I've lost almost everything in eight-hundred years, LeCroix. I suddenly find I don't want to add you to the list."

LeCroix put on a mask of contempt. "Ah, this is more like the Nicolas I have come to know. Maudlin and saccharine."

Nick actually smiled. "Believe me, no one is more surprised than me to find... I don't want to lose you. Think about it, LeCroix. Be honest with yourself."

LeCroix regarded him with curiosity. "Tell me Nicolas. What is your line?"

Nick smiled, and turned to go.

There was no way in heaven or hell he would ever give LeCroix the power over him that lay in that knowledge. But he knew all too well what it was. He stared it in the face almost every night.

That line, for him, was Natalie. If she, helping him, willing to be his friend, closer to him and his soul than anyone else (possibly excluding only LeCroix), was ever harmed in any way either by him or through him, that would be his end.

And his biggest fear was that, one day, he would not be able to resist taking her. That the hunger that had been gnawing in him for years now, the hunger fed by her smiles, her laugh, her caring, the scent of her when she was near, the soft feel of her skin, the gentle touch of her hand, the beating of a heart whose rhythm he knew down to his very soul. His need for her was growing, often too much like his need for blood. One night, his own damned loneliness would weaken him, and the need would be too much. But even if he remained strong, held off from her, that was no guarantee that Natalie would be safe from him. If push ever came to shove, if he ever discovered her fatally injured or ill, he wondered if he could bear losing her, could let her die. Or would he bring her across, to damn her as he was damned?

That he would never forgive himself. That very morning, after an irrevocably changed Natalie gorged herself on her first meal of hot, fresh blood... When she had lost the humanity that he prized most in her, taking the life she had once valued so much... When she cowered and hid from the sunlight that had always been so much a part of her nature... On that very morning, he would have no choice but to stand and meet the dawn.

"Nicolas, one moment," LeCroix called just as the detective reached the door. "Perhaps I should mention... Ricky L was working for someone. When he brought those children in here Friday night, it was to pass them in review for a client. A mortal, about fifty years of age, grey thinning hair, black eyes. He has not been here before or since, and he paid cash, so I have no name for you. But his primary interest was Jennifer Schanke."

Nicolas pulled a black-and-white fax picture from his jacket pocket, and held it out for LeCroix. "Is this him?"

"Yes. It is. So you already know of him."

A cold shiver went through Nick. "I was afraid of that. Don Schanke arrested this man, eight years ago, before we became partners. He's supposed to be dead."

"You think he's resurrected himself for revenge?"

"Against Jenny. Crazy, but... that's how it looks. I think I'd better go see Jenny myself. Good night, LeCroix. And... thanks." 

~0~

LeCroix watched Nicolas leave the club, and settled back in his favourite chair. Contemplating lines. Little did Nicolas know he had already crossed many. The first had separated him from his own humanity, and he crossed that before ever he became a vampire. With the birth of his daughter, he felt he had regained that lost ground with a second chance, fool that he was. His heart he had held onto a little longer, for all the good it did him. But it hadn't been long after he crossed to immortality that his heart was rent from his body, and burned to ash in the lava of Mount Vesuvius.

He had left it just short of too late, to escape from the doomed city. He held tightly to Divia's small hand, dragging her as she laughed at him, certain of her new invulnerability.

Until the first blazing inferno of a house fell in their path. Just the sight of those wicked tongues of flame, the feel of the scorching heat on their brows, and they both sensed that here was an enemy that could, indeed, cut eternity short.

Divia panicked. She tore from his grasp, and ran from the fire. He chased her, shouting, more and more desperate, but they both became lost, individually and from each other, in the smoke and hail of ash.

They might have flown, high above the thickened deadly clouds. That would have saved them. But neither of them knew they could fly. They might have found each other, master and fledgling, father and daughter, by the double link of blood between them. Even without flight, his greater strength would have been sufficient to bear them both to safety. But they did not know there was such a link between them. Did not know it could be used so. When Lucius discovered it, it was by accident.

Dimly, he felt that tenuous link, thrumming with Divia's terror. He had never felt such a touch, inside his mind. It unsettled him, this unfamiliar, alien sense. Her mind was so flooded by panic, she could not see, hear, feel, think anything but her terror. But he griped it with the courage of a Roman soldier, and pulled on it. Slowly, slowly, he felt her mind grow louder, nearer.

A strong wind had come up from the Mediterranean. By freakish chance, it blew a clearing in the street, even as the river of lava came sweeping down, channelled by what walls of stone still remained. Dark crust rolled, steamed and crunched, cracked to reveal bright seams.

And he saw her. She was running from yet another fire, and stumbled on the cobbles, right in the path of the lava. He shouted. She heard. A small hand lifted toward him, a black-streaked face torn by terror and hope.

She cried out to him, "Father!"

He tried to reach her. But a burning tower of wood fell in his way, blocked him.

He could have flown, and still reached her. If he'd known he could. Instead, he had to stand, watching through curtains of flame, as the lava rolled over his poor Divia.

She screamed. It claimed legs, torso, chest, head... The vampire change denied her the quick and merciful death a mortal would have enjoyed. She had to suffer while her flesh fried away instantly at the touch of liquefied stone, her bones blackened and crumbled under the lava. And then it covered all but her arms. Her fingers still clenched and unclenched, beckoning, as they, too, disappeared.

He fell to his knees, and lacked the will or the ability to rise. He might have suffered her fate, might even have welcomed it. Except that a dark figure settled behind him, come from the air. The mysterious eastern physician, the one who had stood between Divia and a mortal death.

"No, my dear General Lucius," said the vampire. "No end for you yet. This is a good start on my revenge, but I have other plans for you."

Then the dark creature took him by the neck, and lifted his limp, resistless body into the night.

But his heart, and any part of him that still had the capacity to be human, was left behind beneath the flowing stone, with the ashes and bones of Pompeii.

~0~


	6. Revenge

~0~

Jenny was a cop's daughter. She had grown up listening to her dad's shop-talk -- of crimes, victims, victories and defeats, laws, regulations, the technicalities that allowed criminals to escape justice, the frustrations inherent in a job where you too often knew who the villain was, but could not prove it.

Nick would need evidence before he could touch Ricky L. Something concrete that would connect the slime with Karen, and the gun that had killed her. If she could find the weapon, or get Ricky to say something incriminating, that might be enough.

Of course, he might have got rid of the gun. That would have been the smart thing to do. But smart people, her dad always said, don't commit crimes. If Ricky had kept it, he would either have it on him, or have it stashed at his current hide-out. Jenny was sure she could manage to search both tonight. And if she kept him talking, sooner or later, he would damn himself out of his own mouth.

In her large purse, she carried Detective Schanke's unloaded service revolver, her little tape recorder, a pocket-size package of tissues, and a twenty dollar bill. Her dad had always insisted she carry enough money for cab fare home.

It wasn't until she arrived at *the Raven* that she began to feel qualms. She was about to go off blithely with a reptile who had already murdered, who was capable of rape... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to just walk off with him, when no one knew where she was going, or what she intended to do. She ought to leave a message for Nick, just in case.

There was a convenience store just down the street. She popped in, bought a greeting card and a pen, and scribbled a note. When she got back to the sidewalk outside *the Raven*, she soon enough found another one of those dark and dangerous young men, and therefore obviously a regular at the club, to intercept.

"Excuse me. Do you know Urs?" she asked. The young man stopped dead, staring as if she were an alien with two heads.

"Yes, I do," he confessed, his voice thick with an unidentifiable accent.

"Great. Could you give her this, please?" The envelope bore the address -- "Urs, please pass this to Nick." She passed it to the young man, who took it automatically, too stunned by this strange encounter to refuse. Jenny gave him a brilliant smile, and said, "Thanks. Gotta go now."

There was a dark limo pulling to the curb across the street. Jenny ran to it, leaned in where a blackened window powered a little way down, and spoke to someone inside. Then she opened the door, and climbed in.

The bemused vampire shook his head and went into the club.

Urs was alone on the dance platform. The male vampire watched her admiringly until the song ended, and she came down for a break. Then he gave her the card. Urs took one look at the envelope, and dived inside for the card. A quick read confirmed her worst fears. She grabbed the hapless messenger by his black jacket lapels.

"Where is she!"

"She got into a black stretch limo. It went east."

Urs thrust the envelope back at him. "See LeCroix gets this, right away!" And then she was out the door at a run. And, in the dark night, she took to a quick glance around, and then took to the air.

The young vampire, more confused than ever, sought out LeCroix. He would dearly have loved to ask a few questions, but didn't dare, not now. LeCroix perused the card's message, and the forbidding coldness in his eyes was enough to send even an immortal running for cover.

"Damn her," LeCroix growled.

Let the young fool get herself killed. He had interfered -- and been interfered with -- enough. He owed her nothing. He should rip up the card, deny ever seeing it, and let events take their course. That's what he ought to do.

"Damn her!" LeCroix swore again, reaching for the phone.

~0~

"So where are we going?" Jenny asked, struggling for a measure of calm. "You can't go back to your warehouse."

"No," Ricky admitted, letting his appreciative eyes dwell on the girl sitting opposite him. She had chosen the seat furthest away from him in the capacious limo, but that only allowed him to study her, head to toe.

"Fortunately," he explained, "I have friends. One of them is loaning me the use of another warehouse. It's not far."

Jenny nodded. But, looking out at the nightscape of Toronto streets, she stiffened. "We're going in circles!"

Ricky nodded, grinning. "Of course. In case you were followed. Can't be leading the cops straight to my only refuge, now can we? You wouldn't want that."

"No, of course not..." Jenny pretended to nonchalance. But with that mocking grin on the man's face, she had to wonder if he'd seen through her from the first.

Karen's dying words echoed in her head again, "It was you they wanted all along..." For what? If he thought she was scamming him, playing decoy for the police, yet he still met her... Did he really want her badly enough to take such a risk? For what? For what?

If she was going to get anywhere, she'd better start pumping for information. She reached into her purse, on the pretext of getting a tissue, and punched the record button on the tape recorder. The car's engine effectively drowned out any minor noises her little machine made.

"About last night, Ricky. What really did happen?"

"I told you. I left, just for a little while, to get some things, and... It's a bad part of town, Jenn. I know, I'm probably to blame for what happened, leaving her alone. If I had been there... I'm not sure I'll ever get over the guilt. But I didn't kill her. You've got to believe that. I know you know about my record. My past. But I was always up-front with Karen about all of it. I'm trying to go straight. This screen test is my last chance at respectability, at legitimate film-making. I want to make it work. But all the cops needed to hear was that I was with Karen last night... And they stopped looking for any other suspect. I'm innocent, Jenny. Do you believe me?"

She couldn't answer. Not honestly, and keep up the fiction, and not with a lie he would see through. So she just looked steadily at him.

Ricky smiled. "You don't trust me, do you little girl? You haven't from the first. Well, maybe you have cause. And you still think I might have killed your friend."

Jenny prevaricated. "I just want to know the truth. She was my friend."

Ricky nodded. "And you're loyal. I respect that. It's the quality I hope to get on film tonight. And... here we are."

The building wasn't more than a half dozen blocks from *the Raven*! They had been going in circles for half an hour. The limo drove straight into a down ramp, as the metal garage door lifted in response to some electronic signal the invisible driver must have given. They drove into a coldly lighted parking level, and the metal door closed behind them. The limo cruised slowly to a set of doors to stairs and elevators, then parked.

Jenny and Ricky got out, and so did the driver.

As soon as Jenny saw the second man, she knew she had met him somewhere... At *the Raven*, the first night, Friday night. This was the old geezer who had tried to buy her a cola. He was middle aged, not very tall, thinning grizzled hair, a bit of a paunch, and unsettlingly keen eyes of jet black examining her.

Jenny spooked. She stood riveted to her spot, knees trembling, thinking of bolting, then and there. This was too freaky, that this man was suddenly here, with Ricky. She didn't know what it meant, but it sure as hell wasn't an accident that one of the men who had tried to pick her up at the club was a partner of Ricky's.

In the next instant, she had command of herself again, her father's urgent warning in her ears, "Never let 'em know you're scared!" She tried to pretend she didn't recognise the second man. But it was already too late.

The second man pulled a gun from his pocket.

"Pleased to meet you, Ms Schanke," the driver said in a low rasping voice. "I've been waiting for this for eight years. Even since your father put me behind bars."

That came as a shock -- although, Jenny acknowledged to herself, it shouldn't have. Now it all made sense. Ricky had been after her the whole time. Hunting for his master. She glanced at Ricky, acid in her gaze.

Ricky smiled, and shrugged. "Sorry, kitten." He took the purse out of her hands, and though he seemed briefly surprised at how heavy it was, he gave it no further thought, just slung the strap over his shoulder. 

Jenny turned to the second man, and asked coldly, "Am I supposed to know who you are?"

"That will wait," the geezer told her. He gestured toward the elevator doors with the muzzle of his gun. Perhaps the gun that had killed Karen. He ordered, "Over there."

They took her up to the top floor of the warehouse. There, they had a set-up not unlike that at the Parkdale location. Cameras, lights, a set with a bed and little else, and a rough office to one side, with card-table and chairs, TV monitor and VCR hooked with cables to the camera, a couple of cardboard boxes, a laptop computer, a lamp. No phones.

Hell of a place to be murdered.

"So who did you say you were?" she inquired casually as they walked her across to the set.

"My name wouldn't mean anything to you. It would have meant a lot to your father. It should be him here tonight. I planned for it to be him. But he cheated me. So it has to be you."

"Yeah, right. Any Schanke being better than none? I hate to break this to you, but Karen is an O'Connor. Or did you have a grudge against her dad, too? You did kill her, right?"

"Clever girl. Yes, I killed her. She wasn't the stupid little bimbo we thought she was. She suspected that you were our real target, and refused to play. We needed her compliance to get you into our little trap, and she balked. She threatened to call the police. We couldn't have that."

"So you killed her. You bastards."

Ricky piped up, "I had nothing to do with that. I really was gone when Turner shot Karen."

Jenny merely glared her contempt at him. Buried was her silent admission that, sometimes, the system was right -- that just because a guy looked guilty, didn't mean he was, until you could prove it. Just as well she hadn't made up some lie to frame him. And then she dismissed all thought of Ricky, worm and accomplice if not actual trigger-puller, to focus on the real villain. "So now what. You shoot me, too?"

The greasy old man smiled. Parts of Jenny wanted to shudder. Okay, all of her did. But she resisted.

"Oh, no. Nothing so quick. I died by inches, those years I spent in prison. Do you know what it's like on the inside for a sex offender of children? Do you have any idea of what they did to me in that awful place?"

Jenny kept still, hoping that was a rhetorical question.

"Well, my dear, you're going to find out. Because I'm going to do it all to you. And when I'm done, maybe I'll do it again, and again. And then, maybe, I'll know how I want you to die. There are so many possible ways, I've dreamed of them all over the years, but I could never make up my mind. After all, I can only chose one."

Jenny swallowed convulsively to lubricate her desert-dry throat. The geezer started toward her. Jenny backed away. She hated herself for it, but she couldn't stop her feet. And she started talking, in a desperate babble.

"You won't get away with it. I left a note, for Nick Knight. I told him I was going to be with Ricky L. Soon as he gets it, he'll be after you like the wrath of God. He'll find you. He's the best there is, he was my dad's partner, and he won't rest until he finds you."

Ricky shifted uneasily. "You told Knight? Turner..."

"You think I care?" Turner retorted.

"Hell no, but I do! Look. I did all you wanted. You've got the girl. Give me my money, and let me get out of here."

Turner looked briefly distracted. It was such a relief to have his focus shift away from her that she almost collapsed to her knees. Instead, she leaned on a column, desperately trying to think up a way out.

"I left it in the car."

Ricky strode forward, and ripped the gun from Turner's hands. "Then stop right there until you get it."

Suddenly, the tape recorder reached the end of the cassette. With a loud click, it turned itself off. Everyone whipped round to stare at the purse under Ricky's arm.

Jenny made a running tackle, catching Ricky in the midriff. He went over with an "Oof!" taking Jenny with him. She fumbled in the purse for the gun, but before she could get it clear of the purse, Ricky was rolling on her. He tore the weapon from her, and as they wrestled for it, the gun went skittering across the floor. Then he looked in the purse.

"Christ. She's got it all on tape." He pulled out the tape recorder, even as Turner retrieved the gun. In fury, Jenny wrestled with Ricky, and almost managed to pull free, when Turner slammed the service pistol across the back of her head.

She didn't lose consciousness, gripping to it by her fingernails, but her vision went to stars and waves of colour, and a crippling pain in her skull. She lost balance and went to her knees, unable to fight.

"It isn't loaded," Turner observed.

"Christ. Look, Turner, you go no further until I have my cash. Go get it. I'll watch the kid for you."

"Very well, I'll get it. But give me my gun."

"No. Think I'm stupid? I know you, remember? I shared a cell with you for six months. No way do I turn my back on you now. She'll be here when you get back with my money."

Frustration made him roar like an animal. The sound put a shiver in Jenny's blood.

"I know you, and trust you as little as you trust me. Let us go and get the money together. We'll leave the girl secured here. I know how to do it."

Turner went to a cardboard box, and pulled out a coil of nylon rope. He wrenched Jenny's arms around a pillar, and tied her wrists. She was still too dizzy from the blow to her head to do more than put up a token resistance.

As they left her alone, Turner was saying, "Nothing had better occur to rob me of this, Richard, or I'll take my vengeance on you! Believe it."

It took Jenny precious minutes to work free of the ropes. She should have made a run for it. But... She still had no evidence. That's what this farce had been for in the first place. Then she noticed her purse, tossed negligently on the bed. With the tape recorder -- and its precious tape -- inside.

Jenny slung the purse on her shoulder and ran for the stairs. She had a head start, but it wasn't a big one. Shouts, the thunder of heavy footsteps, and both men were after her.

All she had to do was get to the street, get to a phone. Get to a cop, any cop!

She hit the street running, fast as she could.

But it wasn't fast enough. The crack was even louder than the night before, echoing off the blind brick buildings framing the street. She felt it like a punch to her shoulder, knocking her off balance. She stumbled, hit a wall, but kept running. When the wall disappeared, she hurtled sideways into an alley.

She landed in a pile of garbage. And struggled to pull herself back up. There was a searing pain in her shoulder. She wondered how bad it was...

"Jenny!" hissed a familiar voice.

"Urs!"

"Can you walk?"

"I... I think so."

"I'll help you."

With Urs' surprisingly strong arm to help, Jenny managed to get to her feet, and the two ran. Bullets whizzed on either side of them, but Urs seemed to be able to see obstacles and routes in the pitch black alley that Jenny could not. They bolted down a side street, ducked into another alley, and another.

Jenny knew she was weakening, but couldn't help herself. She collapsed against a brick wall, with Urs kneeling beside her, no more than a dark outline against a darker night. But maybe it wasn't real darkness all around her. Maybe it was just her own life draining away, as Karen's had.

"Pass out, Jenny. Please, just pass out, now."

"No. Can't. Won't wake up."

Urs caught her chin and said sternly, "Jenny, listen to me. Focus. You trust me, don't you."

"Yes. Run, Urs. They'll kill you. Leave me."

"No. Listen, Jenny. Go to sleep. Go to sleep."

An overpowering wave of weariness flooded her. It was death, she knew. But suddenly, it became very important to tell Urs what she knew. Karen had died without naming her murderer.

"I've got the evidence," Jenny gasped weakly. "It was Turner who killed Karen. He and Ricky are going to kill me. I've got the evidence, on this tape. And... in my arm. The bullet's still there, isn't it?"

"Yes. You're bleeding." Urs sounded so dark, so shaken.

"Don't worry. It's just a flesh wound..." and Jenny giggled. That was wrong. She was probably a little light-headed. Losing too much blood? Maybe. "The bullet. It's from the gun that killed Karen. Tell the cops, okay? In case... And the tape. In my purse..."

"Tell them yourself."

"Need a phone..."

"They're too close behind us. Oh, please, Jenny, just pass out! Or let me leave you here, and I'll go get help..."

"No!" Jenny clutched desperately on Urs' arm. No wonder, she thought, Karen had begged her not to go. Staring into the dark like this, into one's own death, it was hard to face it alone. She could admit it now, to Urs. "I'm scared. I'm so scared. Am I dying?"

"I don't know. We're not far from *the Raven*. I'll try to get you there."

"I won't make it."

"Yes you will. Or Nick will kill both of us."

Jenny smiled weakly. But could not stay awake.

"At last," Urs muttered to herself. It had been almost impossible to resist using her vampire powers to save the child. But that would have revealed Community secrets to a mortal, and that could have killed Jenny more certainly than the bullet lodged in her shoulder. And, oh, the agony of being so close to sweet, hot, flowing blood, and not to be able to taste, even a drop! If she could have left the girl for a moment, she would have seen to it that those two mortal men never had a chance to harm anyone again. But that option had also gone. The only thing left was to wait till the child passed out. But now, Urs could fly her to the safety of *the Raven*.

The club would be closed now, on a Sunday night. But LeCroix would be in residence.

~0~

LeCroix had just shut down the last of the strobe lights for the night, and poured himself a glass of his favourite vintage, A negative. When the door burst open, and Urs landed with an awkward stagger on the upper landing, over-born by the weight of the body in her arms.

"LeCroix, help!" she gasped.

He stopped dead in the middle of the darkened dance floor. He could smell the seductive rusty aroma.

"Urs! What the hell do you mean by breaking down my door? And... You have brought that mortal child into my club!" he growled in suppressed rage. "And it's bleeding!"

Jenny roused weakly. "Oh. He's still pissed with me."

"No," Urs assured her, "he's just a little tetchy this time of night. LeCroix, help me. She's been shot. I don't know what to do! I've never tried to keep one alive, before. And I can't stand being this close to blood. I don't know how Nick does it."

He was going to be forced to interfere again, on this creature's behalf. He could see it coming. But he didn't have to like it. "Why didn't you take her to a hospital?"

Urs stopped dead at that, looking remarkably foolish. "Oh."

LeCroix sighed. "Bring her over here. Put her on the bar."

LeCroix first went to shut the broken door, easily pushing the heavy metal weight into place in spite of the split hinges. Then he wandered to the bar where Urs dropped the girl.

Urs hardly dared to look as LeCroix ripped the girl's shirt, and peeled back the glistening, red-soaked material. There were tracks all over her, too, splotches and stains all over her black jacket, and the aroma was making her dizzy. When Urs licked at her stained fingers, LeCroix slapped at her hand, and frowned warningly.

"Is she going to die?" Urs asked anxiously.

"Yes," said Jenny.

"No," LeCroix corrected, matter-of-factly. He studied the damage with clinical cool detachment. "The wound is not fatal. But she's lost a lot of... blood. We'll have to stop that. Urs, you'll find some linen towels behind the bar. Give them to me. We'll use them for bandages. Then call 911, and anyone else you think might be interested."

While she was busy, he touched one red-stained finger to his lips... And almost groaned with the effort it took to stop at one taste. It was just as he had imagined it, fresh and sweet. Then he scowled and straightened, muttering, "Too sweet." 

Jenny was getting a second wind from somewhere. "They'll be after me," she warned. "Ricky L and Turner. I know too much. I've got the tape, in my purse. They confessed to everything. I've got the bullet. It'll match the ones in Karen. And Turner was after me all the time. He wants me dead."

"As if they need more reason. Why would anyone want you dead?" he demanded with contempt.

"Not so strange. You do," Jenny pointed out, blearily struggling to focus on his pale face. "But Turner... My dad arrested him. So now he wants revenge. But Dad's dead. So he's come for me."

LeCroix stopped. Then he raised a sceptical eyebrow for the child's benefit as he filled a basin with water.

Jenny had kept tight grip on her purse, even in her black-outs. Now she dropped it to the floor. "There's a tape in my bag. That's for Nick. So's the bullet in me."

LeCroix might have seemed the world's most bored man, to anyone not acquainted with him. "That bullet isn't going anywhere at the moment."

Jenny frowned deeply, her head wobbling side to side as she tried to focus and keep focused. She ignored Urs, piling white starched towels next to the club owner, then retreating to the phone at the other end of the bar. She concentrated every energy she could on LeCroix. "I pissed you off last night, didn't I? I'm sorry. But you pissed me off, too. You said Karen didn't matter. But she does."

"You are entitled to your opinion."

She regarded him shrewdly. "You're not as tough as you pretend. You're just scared. Dad always said, never show 'em you're scared. So you put it on, being hard. You lost somebody, didn't you? Somebody you loved. I can tell. I can always tell."

LeCroix was uncomfortably aware of Urs, well within hearing distance for a vampire. He took a wadded towel and put pressure around the bullet hole to stop the bleeding, hard enough to make the girl cry out and wince. He smiled faintly and said, "That is my business."

Jenny gasped, blinked away the surge of darkness, and the terror that came with it, putting tears in her eyes. She bit her lip, and nodded. "Sure. You don't talk about it. Me neither. Can't talk to Mom, cause she still hurts too much. Can't talk to regular people, cause they don't know. They think it's just time you need, and it'll be okay, you'll get over it. Lies. I don't want to get over it. It'll mean I've forgotten. Like killing him again. Can't talk to people like you, people who know, cause you don't want to talk about it, in case it becomes too real. So no one lets you talk. And it wouldn't matter anyway. You can't change what's real."

His cold hand touched her forehead briefly. Fever. It was making her babble. "And what is real."

"Death," she whispered, surprised that she needed to tell him. "It's like a black hole, getting bigger, getting nearer, sucking you into it. Death. Sucking you in. Dad went first, then Karen, now me. It's always there. Regular people can't see it. People who know don't want to see it. But I do. Nick sees it. So does Urs. So do you."

He calmly dabbed a wet rag at the wound, sopping up the blood still sluggishly gushing from the blackened hole in her shoulder. Blood in the rag, blood on his hands, his fingers, turning the water in the bowl red.

"Yes," LeCroix admitted. "I see it."

"So did Karen. So she said, what the hell. *Carpe Noctem*. You do too, sometimes. But you know, don't you? It won't work. Nothing will work. Nothing closes up the hole. Nothing."

He met those earnest dark eyes, all velvet and honest, and he felt it to the core of his ageless vampire soul -- that not even his "immortality" would hold it back forever.

"Nothing," he acknowledged softly.

"It made Karen crazy. Bitter and hard and scared, greedy for stuff to brick up the hole. A little like you, I think. I tried to tell her, it wouldn't work. I tried to hold on to her. I tried to tell her there's only one thing you can do."

LeCroix regarded her curiously. "And what would that be?"

"Dig in your heels, hold on tight as you can to those you want to keep, and fight like hell when the hole tries to rip them out of your arms."

"But Death will always win."

"So? Then you get pissed off and hold on even tighter to what you've got left. And me, I get back at it when I lose."

"Get back at it?"

"It took Karen from me, but it had help. I'm going to see they pay. No matter what it costs. Even if the hole gets me too. Dad would understand that."

"I believe he would."

"My dad... I miss him. Think I'll see him again?"

LeCroix turned away from those over-bright eyes. "Your wound is not fatal. The emergency paramedics are on their way. You are not going to die."

But then there was a sudden crash, as the broken metal door was kicked in. And Ricky L and Walter Turner stood there, armed, ready to kill.

Urs stiffened, but LeCroix held out a warning hand to stop her. He could handle this himself. He came out from behind the bar, and ambled casually toward the two invaders.

"Good evening, gentlemen. I was almost expecting you."

"That's far enough!" Ricky warned, aiming at the vampire. LeCroix obligingly stopped, a smile on his lips as he measured the two men. Turner was the dangerous one. There was a light of madness in his eyes -- unstable, difficult to move with a vampire's brand of persuasion. Ricky was nervous, sweating, shaking. LeCroix discounted him, focusing on Turner.

"Give us the girl, and the tape," Ricky ordered.

LeCroix was aware of Jenny struggling to sit on the bar. He said, "I'm afraid I can't do that. Why don't you put down the guns, and have a drink? On the house. While we wait for the authorities to arrive. They'll be here any moment."

Turner came forward then. "I want the girl."

"Why?"

"Detective Don Schanke put me in prison. I spent eight years of hell in there. Hell. If I could, I would make him feel it all. But he escaped me. So now I want his little girl. Wherever he is, he'll feel that. He'll know my agonies when I torture and slaughter his little girl."

"You're probably right," LeCroix acknowledged, and in an instant, the flashing strobe of memory played across the back of his mind.

~0~

"You don't recognise me, do you, General?" asked the eastern physician. His dark complexion had an odd grey undertone to it. But his eyes glimmered and his teeth were sharpened blades.

Lucius, still lost in darkness of his own, remembering his daughter's hand straining toward him... Suddenly recalled that dark face. "I do remember you. The Syrian campaign. You led the uprising of El Maren."

"A great victory for you, General. You won promotion there, for quick and decisive success. Your noble troops defeated a ragged band of rebels, then executed all the town -- every man, woman and child."

"Standard policy," he murmured, still slumped where he had been dropped, upon a rock across the valley from the glimmering destruction of burning Pompeii. "But I do recall we never found the leader. You."

"I prepared for this revenge, General. All my family, my wife and children... You murdered them all. First I went numb, just as you are now, with the grief and loss. Then I went mad. I would no doubt have perished, had I not happened upon a stranger who gave me this extraordinary gift. But all it was to me was a way to be revenged on you. To take away your family. Or, all of your family that means anything to you -- your daughter. First I thought to feed upon her. But that would have been too quick, too easy. Then I thought to bring her across, then watch her walk into the sun. Or wait for her to waste to nothing, since I did not tell her how she must feed. But she was too much your daughter to fail in those ways. Then I thought, she will feed upon her own father. I would have been content with that. But this... This, perhaps, is better. You will have all of eternity to reflect on what you have lost. What I took from you."

"It was you," Lucius whispered dully. "You who killed my Divia -- twice." The fury in him was like nothing he had ever felt before. It unleashed something quite new, when allied to the vampire a-borning within. He picked up the first weapon his hand met -- a common piece of branch. With a speed that caught even the other by surprise, Lucius was on him, thrusting the wooden stave through his body.

The vampire's screech was terrible. His writhing was terrible. And his withering, sizzling, smoking death was terrible. And completely satisfying.

"So, you wouldn't tell Divia this, either?" he muttered to the dead vampire. "Another way we can die." Just as well it had been so unexpectedly easy. He thought he'd have to roll the bastard under an erupting volcano. But he dropped the body in Vesuvius afterward, just to be sure. He wanted to be sure...

~0~

How the little mortal managed to get to her feet, LeCroix couldn't tell. But she did come forward, placing herself between the gunmen and the club owner.

"No," she said. "Don't hurt him, or Urs. They don't know anything. I didn't tell them anything. I'll go with you. Just don't hurt them."

The irony of the situation was not lost on LeCroix. That an innocent mortal child was attempting to sacrifice herself to save the immortal, next-to-invulnerable existence of a two-thousand year old vampire who had more blood on him than an ocean could wash away.

He reached forward to clutch the child's shoulder -- her good one. "There is no need for you to do this," he told her. But she wasn't listening. She struggled to free herself, but was far too weak to do more than exhaust herself.

"Let her go," Turner commanded, stepping forward.

LeCroix managed to pull her back to his side. With his supernatural reflexes, he would be able to shield her from any bullet. "No. You will find no revenge here."

There was a flicker of movement at the door.

Nicolas had arrived. He was just another shadow on the upper deck, behind the two armed men, silently moving into a better position, his own gun in his hand and ready. His face was a professional mask, intent, focused, prepared. As calmly, coolly dedicated to his sworn purpose as a medieval Crusader knight. Which wasn't surprising, since that's essentially what Nicolas DeBrebant had always been. Behind him, at the door, was his partner, the young Detective Vetter, child of this century, but just as dedicated, and no less prepared to do what had to be done to protect the innocent.

Jenny stiffened under LeCroix's hands, and he knew she had seen Nick. But neither of them betrayed their knowledge to the menacing duo facing them.

"Get away from her," Turner rasped out, taking one more step forward, raising his gun.

"Stop right there!" Nick announced his presence with a shout, "Police. Put down your weapon!" He came forward from the shadows, his own braced gun aimed.

Turner whirled and shot. It was Detective Vetter who returned fire, spinning Turner and dropping him. 

Ricky stared down, then at Nick, then Vetter, and dropped his gun as if it burned him, thrusting his arms in the air.

As Tracy ran into the club, she stopped at Nick. "Are you okay? I was sure he hit you!"

"No, I'm fine. Tracy... thanks." Then both officers came down, Tracy to formally arrest Richard Larraby, while Nick grabbed the sagging Jenny into his arms.

There was only one thing Nicolas could say to his master. "Thank you."

~0~

Urs came to visit Jenny in the hospital the next day. She was hesitant, standing warily in the door, and checking first, to make sure there was no one else around.

"Hi, Urs! Come in," Jenny called brightly. She was still pale, an intravenous bag dripping colourless fluid into her arm, but that smile was all the indication Urs needed.

"I just came to see you were all right," she apologised, and almost guiltily revealed a bunch of flowers she had brought with her. Next to the bouquets and pots already flooding the room, her little bunch seemed rather anaemic.

"I'm fine. Thanks to you! Listen, my mom just popped down the corridor for a coffee. She'll be right back. She wants to meet you."

"Oh no, I can't stay..."

"Urs? Thanks. Really. You saved my life. So did NC. But Nick says I'm to keep right away from him. I guess I’ve been enough of a pain in the ass to him... Will you tell him thank you for me?"

"Sure."

"Urs... Look, I get out of here tomorrow, and the doctors say I can go back to school Thursday. I was just wondering... There's this all-night B horror film fest on at the college this Friday. There's not a chance mom will let me go on my own -- she's a bit shell shocked by all the bother, you know. But if I could tell her I was going with someone safe... What I mean is, would you like to come with me?"

"Someone safe. Me?"

"Sure," and Jenny grinned. "I... I'm kind of at a loss for a friend right now. I was hoping... Well, we seem to have a lot in common."

"We do?"

"Sure. I can prove it to you. Friday night."

"I don't know. I'm kind of expected--"

"At *the Raven*. Yeah. But this will give you a little change of pace. A change is as good as a rest, you know. Please? It's just... I need a friend right now."

Urs could not resist that pleading look. She smiled. "All right. What's the movie?"

Jenny grinned wide and relieved. "It's three movies... Oh, hi Nick!"

Urs started guiltily, but although Nick seemed surprised to see her, he planted a polite kiss on her cheek, then leaned over to do the same for Jenny.

"You're looking good, Jenny."

"I'm feeling great. How'd the arraignment go?"

"Ricky is pleading guilty to one count of accessory after the fact, and one of accomplice to attempted murder. We’ve also got him cold on a dozen other charges... He's going to be off the street a long, long time."

"That's great. Hey, Nick, Urs is going to the movies with me Friday night. Want to come along? You can bring Nat, if you want."

Nick gave Urs a surprised glance.

Defensively, Urs said, "Jenny asked me."

Nick only smiled. "Sure. What's on?"

"It's this great Bela Lugosi triple bill. The original Dracula, Plan 9 from Outer Space about alien vampire zombies, and Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein."

Nick burst out laughing, and the other two joined him.

"Well, I'd better get going," Urs bowed out. "See you Friday night."

Leaving Nick alone with Jenny.

She glanced up at him, and said, "I'm sorry for being such a pain in the ass, Nick. I gave you a pretty hard time. But... I guess you know, I was just afraid for Karen. I didn't think you would help, even if you could."

He frowned at that. "I hope you realise now that you were wrong. I'm not sure I could have done anything for Karen, but I sure as hell would have tried. You took some terrible risks." 

"I know. But I had to. And I would do it again. Nick? What I said that night, about you and dad not being friends... I know that wasn't true. I know that you were more than just friends. Dad was very proud of that, you know. Proud that you were his partner. He used to say you were weird as they come, but he could trust you to hell and back."

Nick smiled. "I miss your dad, Jenny."

"So do I. It's hard, sometimes... not to be able to talk about him. I feel like he's slipping away from me."

Nick placed a hand on hers. "Jenny. You and I can talk about Donny Schanke. Any time."

The tremulous, grateful smile she gave him was as precious a gift as he had ever been given.

~0~

Nick lingered behind till *the Raven* had cleared out, then went to knock at the studio door.

LeCroix gave him a wary glance. "I have a show to prepare, Nicolas."

"If you're worried I'm going to thank you again, forget it. I just thought you'd like to know that it's over. The court has passed its verdict on Richard Larraby -- twenty years minimum. IA has determined that the shooting of Walter Turner, AKA escaped prisoner Werner Templeton, was justified. No further action will be taken. And Jennifer Schanke is back at home, and has solemnly given me her word she won't be back here again."

"Good," LeCroix growled waspishly. 

"I thought you'd like that. Of course, she won't guarantee not to call NC on some night when he's being particularly bitter, cynical and stupid. Her words, LeCroix, not mine."

LeCroix stared darkly into the glass before him. Nick was about to turn around and leave, his mission complete, when his Master's quiet voice spun out to stop him.

"Nicolas. A moment."

He turned, and, at LeCroix's gesture, took a chair.

"I don't believe I have ever told you about Divia. Have I?"

"I don't think so."

"Then make yourself comfortable. I would like to talk about her, if you will listen. You see, she was my daughter..."

~0~

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people think Forever Knight was a rip off of Tanya Huff’s Blood series (about a vampire in Toronto solving supernatural crimes with a mortal private detective), but not so. According to Wikipedia, in 1989, Rick Springfield (soap opera star & pop singer) starred in the made-for-TV film Nick Knight, in which he played an 800-year-old vampire cop in LA, solving crimes and seeking a cure for his condition. The film was later remade as the first two episodes of the series Forever Knight (ran 3 seasons, 1992-1996). The only changes they made to the pilot script were to re-set from LA to Toronto, and cast the Coroner buddy as a woman. They even kept the same car, a convertible with a big trunk, suitable to hide a vampire caught out in daylight. With the ‘French connection’ (Nick was a French knight in the Crusades when he was turned), it’s more of a ‘homage’ to Anne Rice, I’ve always thought. FK was one of the first TV series made in Canada for the US market (along with Kung Fu: the legend continues, remember that one? The Crow, The Sentinel, Adderly, the Stargate franchise, Andromeda, Due South, and, yes, X-Files, etc. etc. etc.) so a lot of the faces were familiar to Canadian audiences. And no, I didn’t like how they ended it… it felt like a toss-away to me. Anything to finish it off in the last five minutes.


End file.
